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Library of The Theological Seminary 
PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY 


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FROM THE LIBRARY OF 


ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 


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Dickert, Thomas Wilson, 
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The children's kingdom 





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THE CHILDREN’S KINGDOM 





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LAURA ELIZABETH DICKERT 


The Children’s be 


Sermons for the Junior y OF 
Congregation /\> 





By | 
THOMAS) WIUSONTDICK ERT: <D.D.- 


Author of “Sermons for Juniors,” etc., Pastor St. Stephen's 
Reformed Church, Reading, Pa. 


With Introduction by 
GEORGE W. RICHARDS, D.D., LL. D., 


President of the Theological Seminary of the 
Reformed Church in the United States 
Lancaster, Pa. 





NEW YORK CHICAGO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 
LONDON AND EDINBURGH 


Copyright, 1924, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue. 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


Thus volume of 
Junior Sermons 
is inscribed with tender affection 
to my daughter 
Laura Elizabeth Dickert— 
familiarly known as Betty— 
the youngest member of my 
Junior Congregation 





INTRODUCTION 


-ESUS was deeply interested in children and 
J often spoke of them to His followers. He ob- 
served them at play. He laid His hands upon 
them in blessings, when others rebuked them. He 
set a child in the midst of His disciples, who were 
disputing with one another on the way, who was 
the greatest. He told them that to receive a lit- 
tle child was the same as receiving Him and His 
Father. If one desired to enter the Kingdom, 
which He proclaimed, he must have the spirit of 
a child, for of such is the Kingdom of God. The 
children hailed Him with Hosannas in the Temple 
the last week of His life, while the chief priests 
and scribes were moved with indignation at Him. 
In brief, Jesus discovered the child and set a new 
value upon him, at a time when life generally, 
and especially that of children, was lightly es- 
teemed. 

What Jesus thought and taught about children, 
the ripe experience of two thousand years and the 
wisdom of science have approved. Men, in every 
sphere of life, are more and more accepting Jesus’ 
valuation of childhood. The teacher, the minister, 
the social scientist, the moral reformer, and the 
statesman—all alike feel that the strategic period 
for the making of men and women who are relig- 
ious, moral, patriotic, just, and loyal is the plastic 
age of childhood. For the future of the church and 


7 


8 INTRODUCTION 


the state is clearly recognized to be bound up with 
the childhood and youth of a nation. 

If the Church ever forgot the Master’s estimate 
of childhood, the time has come when every pos- 
sible provision is made for the nurture of children 
from the day of birth to the period of maturity. 
For this purpose we have schools of many kinds, 
some under the supervision of the church and oth- 
ers of the state. Parents and teachers are in close 
cooperation in the training of the young. During 
the last thirty years a distinctive children’s litera- 
ture has been produced. Organizations have been 
founded to develop, by practice as well as by pre- 
cepts, both the body and the soul of our boys and 
girls. Laws have been placed upon the statute books 
to provide ways for advancing the welfare of the 
child and of protecting him against every form of 
exploitation. 

One of the most recent methods of approach to 
the children of the churches is through the chil- 
dren’s sermon preached in the Sunday morning 
service before the sermon to adults. Many minis- 
ters in the different churches have made this a 
permanent part of the service, and as a rule this 
address has been as favorably received by the men 
and women as by the children. 

It is by no means easy to preach to children. Men 
who may be able to preach with satisfaction to 
adults, may fail when they attempt to talk to chil- 
dren. In the last ten years, doubtless to meet a 
widely-felt need among ministers, books of chil- 
dren’s sermons have been published and used to 


INTRODUCTION 9 


good advantage. Yet this kind of sermon literature 
is still in its early stage and there is much room for 
books of this sort. 

We are quite sure that all who work for the wel- 
fare of children, and of course none more than 
ministers and Sunday-school superintendents and 
teachers, will welcome this’ volume of sermons. 
The author is fitted by nature, grace, and experi- 
ence for this kind of preaching. In his mature 
manhood, rich in pastoral labors and ripe in scholar- 
ly attainments, he has none the less maintained the 
simplicity and sincerity of childhood. He is withal 
gifted with the art of putting sound thought in a 
childlike way, without becoming childish. He is a 
master, also, in the use of illustrations and stories, 
which invariably illuminate his thought and hold the 
attention of his young audience and his wider cir- 
cle of readers. Perhaps one of the best tests of the 
value of a sermon for children is the degree of in- 
terest which it arouses in adults. This test, we be- 
lieve, the sermons in this volume, as a rule, will 
meet satisfactorily. 

If the publication of these sermons will help oth- 
ers to show boys and girls the truth, the goodness, 
and the beauty of Jesus and His gospel as the author 
has done and is doing in his faithful ministry, then 
his labor of love has not been in vain and the 
members of his congregation, parents and children, 
as well as the ministers will rejoice with him in 
this product of his pen. 

GEORGE W. RICHARDS. 


Lancaster, Pa. 


PREFACE. | 


EING greatly gratified by the appreciative re- 
ception accorded my first volume of “Se-- 


mons for Juniors,’ and encouraged by tise 
many requests for sermons of a similar character, 
I send forth this second volume of sermons in the 
hope that they may be as kindly received as were 
those of the first volume. 

Both children and adults have written to me 
about the sermons and have spoken of the joy and 
helpfulness which they have derived from them. 
Among these letters I prize most highly those of 
two aged ministers, both of whom have since passed 
to their eternal reward, one of them writing to me 
as follows only a short time before his departure: 
“Permit me to express my appreciation of your 
junior sermons. I am an aged minister, and the 
older I become the more I appreciate reading them.” 
And the other urged me very strongly to publish 
the sermons in book form in order that they might 
benefit a larger circle of readers. 

The subject of one of the sermons, “The Chil- 
dren’s Kingdom,” is fittingly used as the title of 
the whole volume, which has to do so largely with 
the blessings and benefits which accrue to children 
from a proper appreciation of the fact that the 
Kingdom belongs to them. 

I am greatly indebted to the many sources from 
which I have received suggestions and stories, and 


10 


PREFACE 11 


gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to them. 
“The field is the world,’ and nothing is too good 
for God’s children of all ages. 

I wish to thank the editor and publishers of the 
“Reformed Church Messenger,’ for permission to 
use these sermons, which were first printed in that 
excellent religious weekly, and also to express my 
sincere gratitude to the publishers of this volume 
for their many courtesies, and to commend them 
for the large number of excellent books that have 
come from their press. 

Daw, D: 

Reading, Pa. 


AXVIT. 
XXVITI. 


CONTENTS 


Give God the Best.... 
Perfection . 

The Bible ..0h uf 
‘‘What’s In A Mamneer 


When Abraham Lincoln ANag A Bove 


St. Valentine’s Day.. 


When George Washington Was A Boy. 


Child Welfare. . 


“Say It With Rowers? ae 


The Come-Back. . 


The Childlikeness Bt Vestal ! 
Lessons From the Palm Tree 


The Meaning of the Cross. .. 


An Easter Message... .. 
Making Pearls... 
Happy Springtime.. .. 
The Little: Boxes ayn 
A Fairyland of Light.... 
Love and Fear..... 
Little Mothers. 

Ants As Teachers... 
Jesus and The Chidrent 


The Story of Our Flag..... 


Why I Love Children. . 


Our; Nation's Birthday ju ae 


Christ’s Letter . 


The Call of the Rotana Hv 


Into the Woods. . 
12 


CONTENTS 


The Wonderful River... 
Behold the Birds... 
More About Birds.. . 


EU tered Coden Lk ind 


A Basket of Summer Fruit... 
Lessons From the Spider...... 
The Great, Wide Sea. 


But the Whole Childite School | 


Perseverance. . ee 
“The Shoes of Happiness” ui 
Hidden Pictures... .. 

The Children’s Kingdom. 

The Burning Bush.. 

The Wonderful Dipper. 
Hallowe’en.... ae 

The Golden HES a) 
Revelation to Gritdcen La 
A Love Letter to Children.. 

A Thanksgiving Sandwich. . 
Painting Your Best Picture.. .. 
The Blessing of Friendship..... 
Following the Star.. My 
Making Room for anes attr, 


Looking Backward and Rorwecde a ee 


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GIVE GOD 7 Ui BB Biss 


“All things come of thee, and of thine own have 
we given thee.” —I Curon. 29:14. 


N beginning a new series of Junior Sermons, we 
if want to start out by making it our rule to give 
God the best. 

Everything we have comes from God. David 
knew this long ago. When he began to gather the 
material for the temple which his son Solomon was 
to build, and the people brought gold and silver and 
brass and iron and precious stones, he was very 
glad and sang a hymn of praise to God, in which 
he used the words of our text, “All things come of 
thee, and of thine own have we given thee.” 

A long time after this St. James wrote, “Every 
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 
coming down from the Father of lights.” 

The best and the greatest gift which God ever 
gave to the world was His own Son, whose birth- 
day we just celebrated, and all the gifts we gave 
and all that we received were given because God 
gave us His wonderful gift. Love shows itself in 
giving. 

When the Wise Men came to worship the child 
Jesus, they opened their treasures and offered unto 
Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. They 
gave Him the best gifts they could find. They felt 
that nothing was too good for Jesus. 


14 


GIVE GOD THE BEST 15 


Not everybody has gold to give, and especially 
not boys and girls; but if every one gives God the 
best they can give He will be pleased with the 
gift. 

St. Mark and St. Luke tell us the story of the 
poor widow who put two mites into the treasury. 
Jesus was watching the people as they brought their 
offerings and cast them into the treasury. Many 
that were rich cast in much, but this poor widow 
cast in two mites, which made less than half a cent. 
Jesus called His disciples to Him, and said to them, 
“Verily I say unto you, This poor widow cast in 
more than all they that are casting into the treas- 
ury: for they all did cast in of their superfluity ; 
but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even 
all her living.” 

From this story we learn that a small gift is 
just as dear to Jesus as a large one, if it is the 
best we have to give and if our heart’s love goes 
with the gift. 

Some years ago a minister was married, and the 
members of the congregation raised a large sum 
of money to give him a present. Before he went 
away on a trip a little girl of the congregation came 
to him and shyly pressed a sticky penny into his 
hand with the words: ‘“That’s your present from 
me. It’s my two Saturdays’ money!” The minister 
thought more of that penny than of all his grand 
gifts. It meant a great deal for a little girl to deny 
herself for two weeks to give a gift to the min- 
ister. 


16 GIVE GOD THE BEST 


Some of you have heard the story of the boy 
who had a dog by the name of Fido, of whom he 
was very fond. One day as they sat down to eat 
their dinner, Fido came and sat close beside Harry, 
looking up into his face as much as to say, “Don’t 
forget that I am here, and that I am hungry, too.” 
Every time Harry looked at him he would wag his 
tail and beat the floor with it as though he was 
sure of getting something. When Harry’s father 
passed his plate to him, loaded with chicken, he was 
about to put it on the floor for Fido, but his fa- 
ther said it was too good for the dog, and that after 
they were through with the meal he might give Fido 
something. After the meal was over, Harry’s fa- 
ther told him he might gather up the bones and the 
scraps for Fido. When he had gathered them up 
and put the plate down, he said: “Fido, I meant to 
give you an offering, but this is only a collection.” 

I never say to my congregation: “We will now 
take up the collection ;’’ but I always say: “The of- 
fering of the Congregation will now be received.” 
There is quite a difference between a collection and 
an offering, and we want to give God the best. 

During the past year I helped to open many of the 
envelopes of the Junior Congregation, and I noticed 
a great difference in the offerings of the children. 
Among the best offerings for the year were those 
of the three daughters of a widow in our congrega- 
tion, who is a tither, that is, she gives one-tenth of 
what she earns to the Lord. We use the duplex 
envelopes in our Junior Congregation and each of 
the three girls puts five cents on each side of the en- 


GIVE GOD THE BEST 17 


velope every Sunday—thirty cents a Sunday from 
the three, or fifteen dollars and sixty cents for the 
year, half of which goes for missions. And these 
offerings come from the earnings of a poor widow, 
who works hard that she may keep her children out 
of the Orphans’ Home and may bring them up her- 
self. And beside this, she is one of the best givers 
in Our congregation. | 

I noticed, too, that some children put new pen- 
nies and nickels and dimes into their envelopes, 
while others put in black and bent and worn-off 
coins, as though they thought anything was good 
enough for God. I have made it my rule for years, 
when giving an offering in the house of God, to 
select the nicest and newest coins I can find, because 
I believe we ought to give God the best. 

There is one gift we all have, and which God 
wants above all other gifts. It is the gift of the 
heart and its love. If we give God this gift, I am 
sure we will give Him the best we can whenever we 
bring Him an offering. 


II. 
PERFECTION 


“Ve therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly 
Father is perfect.’—Matrt. 5:48. 


N this text we are told what we shall be some 
day, and the sooner we begin to think about it 
and to prepare for it the better it will be for us. 

We do not know what this New Year may have 
in store for us, but we ought to try and live in 
such a way that at the end of the year we will 
be better than we are now and will be nearer to 
that perfection which God wants us to reach. 

I do not know how many of you made New 
Year resolutions at the beginning of this year. 
The trouble with such resolutions is that they are 
so soon and so easily broken, but it is better to have 
tried and failed than never to have tried at all. If 
your resolutions have been of the right kind, and if 
you try very hard to keep them, you cannot help but 
be better at the end of the year than you were at 
the beginning. 

Nobody reaches perfection in this life, but every 
one ought to keep his eye fixed upon it as the goal 
which he hopes some day to reach. 

I am sure we all feel like the great painter in 
New York City. A friend came into his studio one 
day and looked at the many beautiful pictures he 
had painted. At last he asked the painter which 


18 


PERFECTION 19 


of all his paintings was the best. He took his friend | 
to the other side of the room and showed him a 
large piece of white canvas stretched in a beautiful 
frame, and said: “That is my best picture.” 

What do you think he meant? There was no 
picture there. No brush had ever touched that 
canvas. The great artist meant to say that the 
best of his pictures was not yet painted, but that 
it was in his mind and heart as a beautiful image 
which he hoped some day to put upon the canvas, 
and that would be his masterpiece. 

Turning to his friend, the painter said: “I am 
sorry I cannot show you that picture. I am always 
trying, but it still creeps ahead of me. I have 
painted it there in my mind a thousand times, and 
some day perhaps I will be able to paint it as I 
see it.” 

That painter dreamed of perfection, but he had 
never painted the perfect picture. When he fin- 
ished one picture, it was not as perfect as he wanted 
it to be, and not as perfect as the next one would 
be. But was it not a grand thing that he had the 
idea of perfection before him? 

Did you ever have a perfect lesson in school, or 
do anything that you thought was perfect? Do 
you not always feel that you can do still better? 
There are some problems in arithmetic which, if 
done correctly, will be perfect. There is only one 
way to do them, and only one answer is correct. 
But when we have to do with the higher things of 
life it is different. We may build a house in a year 
and have it almost perfect, but it takes a lifetime 


20 PERFECTION 


to build a character and then we feel that it is not 
perfect. 

I do not believe God wants us to be satisfied 
unless we do our very best. We ought to feel like 
the painter, that our best picture has not yet been 
painted, that our best work has not yet been done, 
that our best character has not yet been formed. 

A great English poet by the name of Robert 
Browning once wrote these words: 


“Grow old along with me, 
The best is yet to be; 
The last of life for which the first was made.” 


Life’s best always ought to be in the future, for 
God and Heaven lie on before us. | 

In Christ we can see what God wants us to be. 
He was perfect, as God wants us to be. We must 
try to be like Him more and more every day, and 
some day we shall be perfect as our heavenly Fa- 
ther is perfect. 

When we think we are at our best, let us see how 
nearly we are like Him and we shall see that we 
still have far to go to reach perfection. 

One day an English minister was visiting one of 
his members—a washerwoman—who was just fin- 
ishing her day’s work. As he saw the clothes hang- 
ing on the line in the little yard he thought they 
looked very clean and white, and he said to the 
woman: “A very fine wash you are hanging out.” 
I am sure that the good woman felt very proud 
with it. They went inside the house, and after 
remaining awhile the minister came to the door 


PERFECTION 21 


to leave. He saw that it had snowed while he was 
in the house and the ground was white, although 
the air was clear. ‘‘Ah!” he said to the woman, 
“your clothes do not look as white as they did!” 
“O, sir,” said the woman, “the clothes are all right, 
but what can stand against God Almighty’s white?” 

God’s spotlessness is our pattern and ideal. Huis 
work is perfect, and He wants us to do our best. If 
you, boys and girls, therefore begin to do your 
best every day, whether at work, at study, or at 
play, you will find that you will make the best of 
life, and that some day you will be perfect as your 
heavenly Father is perfect. 


The 
THE BIBLE 


“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.’—PSALM 
1192105: 


HE Bible is the most wonderful book in the 
world. But it is more than a book; it is a 
library of sixty-six books. There are thirty- 

nine books in the Old Testament, and twenty-seven 
in the New Testament. 

One of the best memory exercises for boys and 
girls of the Junior Congregation age is to learn by 
heart the names of the books of the Bible in their 
order. If you learn them now, you may never for- 
get them. I learned these names when I was young, 
and I remember them today. 

I read about a boy today who repeated the seven- 
teenth chapter of John at a school examination, 
when he was only five years old, and he received 
a story book as his prize. 

The books of the Bible were written by many 
different men who lived at different periods in the 
world’s history. Among them were lawgivers, his- 
torians, shepherds, kings, priests, farmers, tent-mak- 
ers, poets, fishermen, doctors and ministers, but all 
of them were good men. The Old Testament books 
were mostly written in Hebrew, and the New Tes- 
tament books in Greek. 

The chapter from which our text is taken is one 
of the most wonderful chapters of the Bible. It 


22 


THE BIBLE 23 


is the longest chapter in the Bible. It has one hun- 
dred and seventy-six verses. It has been called “The 
Golden Alphabet,” because it is divided into twenty- 
two sections of eight verses each, and every section 
has over it a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which 
has twenty-two letters in all, while our alphabet, as 
you know, has twenty-six letters. 

But if you look into a Hebrew Bible you will 
notice something which you do not find in the 
English Bible. The chapter is written in Hebrew 
poetry, and every one of the eight verses in every 
one of the twenty-two sections begins with the same 
letter. The first eight verses begin with Aleph, 
which is the Hebrew letter A. The next eight 
verses begin with Beth, which is the Hebrew let- 
ter B. The next eight verses begin with Gimel, 
which is the Hebrew letter G. (They have no C in 
their alphabet.) The next eight verses begin with 
Daleth, which is the Hebrew letter D. And so it 
goes on through the whole chapter and the whole 
Hebrew alphabet. 

Another wonderful thing about this Psalm is that 
every one of the one hundred and seventy-six verses 
tells something about the word or the law of God. 
The subject of the Psalm in the American Revised 
Version is ‘‘Meditations and Prayers relating to the 
Law of God.” You could play a very interesting 
game by seeing who could get the largest number 
of names for the word of God, or the law of God, 
out of this Psalm in the shortest time. Here are 
the ones found in the first eight verses, using the 
same word only once: law, testimonies, ways, pre- 


24 THE BIBLE 


cepts, statutes, commandments, judgments. The 
word “‘statutes” is used twice here, in the fifth and 
in the eight verses. 

In the verse from which our text is taken the 
writer says: 


“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, 
And a light unto my path.” 


But if we want the Bible to be a lamp unto our 
feet, and light unto our path, we must use it. We 
must read it, and study it, and walk in its light. 

We often find people having a large family Bible 
on the table in the sitting room or in the parlor, and 
above it usually hangs a light. Often it is the only 
Bible they have. It is so large that it is hard to 
handle, and is very seldom read. Sometimes the 
children look at its wonderful pictures, or the father 
or mother write into it the name of a child who was 
born, baptized, married, or buried. 

The Bible can give no more light to the mem- 
bers of the family unless it is read than can the 
chandelier or hanging lamp above it unless it is lit. 

The writer of this Psalm knew how to use the 
word of God so that it would help him. In the 
eleventh verse of this Psalm he says: 


“Thy word have I laid up in my heart, 
That I might not sin against Thee.” 


And how good it would be if many persons would 
have the same feeling toward the Word of God as 
he shows in the ninety-seventh verse, where he 
says: 


THE BIBLE 25 


“Oh how I love Thy law! 
It is my meditation all the day.” 

If every boy and girl would begin to do that 
early in life, how much happier they would be when 
they grow up to be men and women. 

There was once a Japanese boy by the name of 
Yoshio, who went to a mission school. He was 
given a beautiful Bible by a Japanese friend. He 
thought he had never seen such a beautiful book 
in his life, and he loved it dearly. He could not 
speak English as well as Japanese, but this is what 
he said: “From the next day I used to pray to God 
first, “Pray, let me understand Thy Holy Book.’ 
And I read it every morning and night. First I 
started the New Testament, but many references 
were on the edges of each page. They all were 
quoted from the Old Testament. I thought it was 
better to read from the very beginning of Genesis. 
Soul did. 

Surely, if this Japanese boy could read his Bible 
through, then every American boy and girl can do 
the same. Make it the rule of your life to read 
the Bible every day. If you read a chapter every 
day, it will take you about three years and a quarter 
to read the whole Bible through. If you want to 
read it through in one year, you can do so by read- 
ing three chapters every week-day and five chapters 
every Sunday. 

King George V of England promised his mother, 
Queen Alexandra, over forty years ago, that he 
would read a chapter of the Bible each day, and he 
has kept that promise faithfully. 


IV. 
“WHAT'S IN A NAME?” 
“And he called his name Jesus.’-—Matt. 1:25. 


N the beautiful story of “Romeo and Juliet,” 
| Shakespeare makes Juliet say: 

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose 

By any other name would smell as sweet.” 

Every name has a meaning. Your first name, 
which is called your Christian name, has a mean- 
ing; and there is no doubt a reason why that name 
was given to you. Your middle name, if you have 
one, has a meaning. Your last name, the family 
name, called the surname, has a meaning. 

You did not choose your own name, but it was 
given you by your parents or by some friend of 
the family. Your family name belongs to you be- 
cause you are a son or a daughter of your parents, 
and you bear the family name of your father. 

These family names all have their meaning. They 
come from the kind of work that was done by the 
first man of that name, or from the place where he 
lived, or from some office he held, or from some 
particular thing or event that happened in his life. 
It is not hard to find out where some family names 
come from, such as Smith, Cooper, Carpenter, Bak- 
er, and Taylor. 

Do you know the meaning of your family name, 
or what it comes from? If you do not, you will 


26 


WHAT'S IN A NAME 27 


have something interesting to work upon when you 
grow a little older. 

The story is told that three brothers by the name 
of Klein came to this country from Germany. No 
doubt the first man by that name was so called be- 
cause he was a small man, small in stature. One 
of the brothers settled in Pennsylvania, and kept 
the family name of Klein. Another brother went 
up to Massachusetts and settled there, but he 
changed his name to Little, the English for Klein. 
The third brother went South and settled in Mary- 
land, and he changed his name to Small, which is 
another translation for Klein. And now we have 
many families all over our country by the name of 
Klein, Small, and Little. 

Your first and middle names, which are called 
your Christian names, were given to you at your 
baptism. You were given those names for some 
special reason. Perhaps you were named for some 
special person, or the name was given because your 
father or mother liked it very much. Sometimes a 
boy must be given the names of his two grand- 
fathers, or a girl must be named after her two 
grandmothers. Sometimes a boy is named after the 
President of the United States who happens to be 
in office at the time. There are all kinds of rea- 
sons for giving all kinds of names to children. 

Did you ever look up the meaning of your. Chris- 
tian name? These names all have a meaning. I 
cannot take the time and space to give the mean- 
ing of all the names, but I am going to give you the 


28 WHAT’S IN A NAME 


meaning of a number of the most common names 
of boys and girls: 

Aaron—lofty, inspired. Albert—nobly bright, 
illustrious. Alfred—good counselor. Andrew— 
strong, manly. Arthur—high, noble. Agnes— 
chaste, pure. Amanda—worthy to be loved. Amelia 
—busy, energetic. Benjamin—son of the right 
hand. Beatrice—making happy. Bertha—bright, 
beautiful. | Blanche—white. Charles — strong, 
manly. Clarence-—illustrious. Clara—bright, illus- 
trious. Daniel—a divine judge. David—beloved. 
Dorothy—the gift of God. Edward—guardian of 
property. Eugene—well-born, noble. Edith—hap- 
piness. Elizabeth—worshiper of God. Esther—a 
star, good fortune. Ethel—noble. Eva—life. Frank 
—free. Frederick—abounding in peace. Florence 
—blooming, flourishing. George—a _ landholder. 
Harold—a champion. Henry—the head or chief of 
a house. Herbert—glory of the army. Hannah— 
grace. Helen—light. Ira—watchful. I[da—godlike. 
James—a supplanter. John—the gracious gift of 
God. Joseph—he shall add. Lewis—bold warrior. 
Laura—a laurel. Martin—warlike. Margaret—a 
pearl. Martha—the ruler of the house. Mary— 
star of the sea. Nathan—a gift. Nathaniel—gift 
of God. Oscar—bounding warrior. Paul—tittle. 
Peter—a rock. Philip—a lover of horses. Ralph— 
hero. Richard—powerful. Robert—bright in fame. 
Rebecca—of enchanting beauty. Ruth—beauty. 
Samuel—heard of God. Sarah—a princess. Theo- 
dore—the gift of God. Thomas—a twin. Victor— 


WHAT’S IN A NAME 29 


a conqueror. Virginia—pure. Walter—-ruling the 
host. William—protector. 

The name of Jesus also has a special meaning. 
Before Jesus was born, an angel came to Joseph 
and said to him about Mary: “And she shall bring 
forth a son; and thou shalt call His name JESUS; 
for it is He that shall save His people from their 
sins.” The name Jesus means Savior. He was also 
called Christ, which means “anointed.” A Chris- 
tian, as our Catechism says, is a ‘member of Christ.” 
St. Luke tells us “that the disciples were called 
Christians first in Antioch.” 

The Bible tells us: “A good name is rather to be 
chosen than great riches.” No matter what your 
first name, or middle name, or family name may be, 
see to it that you make it a good name, so that when 
your name is mentioned people will say: “He is a 
good boy;” “She is a good girl.” 

As I began this sermon with a quotation from 
Shakespeare, so I want to end it with one, taken 
from the story of “Othello,” where Iago says: 


“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls: 

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; 
*Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; 
But he that filches from me my good name 

Robs me of that which not enriches him 

And makes me poor indeed.” 


AAS 
WHEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS A BOY 


“And I will bless thee, and make thy name great; 
and be thou a blessing.’—GEN. 12:2. 


HEN God called Abraham, whose name at 
W first was Abram, He said unto him: ‘Get 
thee out of thy country, and from thy 
kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land 
that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a 
great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy 
name great; and be thou a blessing: and | will 
bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee 
will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the 
earth be blessed.” 

God might have said all those words to Abraham 
Lincoln, because he was in many ways like the 
man whose name he bore. He was born in Ken- 
tucky on Sunday, February 12, 1809, one hundred 
and fifteen years ago. Like Abraham, he left the 
section of country where he was born, because, 
when he was seven years old, the family moved into 
the State of Indiana, and fourteen years later they 
moved to Illinois. 

And as God promised to the Abraham of the 
Bible, so He did to Abraham Lincoln: “TI will 
bless thee, and make thy name great.” God did 
bless Abraham Lincoln in a wonderful way, and 
He made his name great, so that today his name 


30 


WHEN LINCOLN WAS A BOY 31 


is placed alongside that of George Washington, and 
these two are called the greatest Americans. 

God also said: “And be thou a blessing.” We 
need only read the story of Abraham Lincoln’s life 
and the many kind things he did, to see that he was 
a great blessing. He took away from our country 
one of the greatest curses we ever had—the curse 
of slavery. 

And even when God said: “I will bless them that 
bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse,” 
it was true of Abraham Lincoln. Many of the peo- 
ple of our country blessed Abraham Lincoln for 
what he had done for them, and especially the 
slaves whom he had freed; and they were greatly 
blessed. 

God did not say: “And them that curse thee will 
I curse,” but He said: “And him that curseth thee 
will I curse.” Abraham Lincoln was shot by John 
Wilkes Booth on the evening of April 14, 1865, and 
he died the next day, aged fifty-six years, two 
months and three days. But the curse of God 
rested on the murderer. He had to flee for his life, 
and had to hide like a fox, and twelve days after- 
ward he was shot in a barn. | 

But the last of God’s promises to Abraham is the 
most wonderful of all: “And in thee shall all the 
families of the earth be blessed.” This also is true 
of Abraham Lincoln. What he did for our coun- 
try,—to give the people liberty, righteousness, jus- 
tice and peace,—our country is now trying to do for 
the world. That is what the great Conference at 
Washington was for,—to bring to other nations what 


32 WHEN LINCOLN WAS A BOY 


Abraham Lincoln and men like him have given to 
us. 

But what the members of the Junior Congrega- © 
tion want to know is what kind of a boy it was who 
became so great a man as Abraham Lincoln. 

He was a poor boy, born in a log cabin of the 
rudest sort, with a single room, a single window, a 
big fireplace and a large outside chimney. In our 
country, a poor boy and a poor girl may make their 
mark in life if they have the right spirit and are 
willing to do their part. 

He had a good mother, who taught him and his 
sister, Sarah, to spell and to read, and told them 
Bible and fairy stories. But when he was nine and 
a half years old, in the fall of 1818, his mother died. 
She called her children to her bedside, and laying 
her feeble hand on her boy’s head, she said: “I am 
going to leave you, Abe,—and, oh, how hard it is to 
part with you. I know that you will be a good boy; 
that you will be kind to Sarah and to your father. 
I want you to live as I have taught you, and to love 
your Heavenly Father. I am thankful God gave 
you to us. Love everybody, hinder nobody, never 
lie, never drink, and the world will be glad some 
day that you were born.” 

Is it any wonder that a boy with such a mother 
became a great man, and that he said long after- 
ward: “All that I am, and all that I hope to be, I 
owe to my angel mother?’ Many a boy has given 
his mother credit for his greatness. Benjamin West 
once said: “A kiss from my mother made me an 
artist.” 


WHEN LINCOLN WAS A BOY © 33 


He did not have much schooling, but he made 
wonderful use of the time he spent in school, which 
did not make more than one solid year in all. 
One of his schoolmates said that he was a very 
bright boy at school, and made great progress 
in his studies. Though he was quite young, he 
studied very hard, and learned faster than any 
of his schoolmates. 

He was very fond of reading, and in that way he 
gained an education which surprised the world. He 
had only a few books, but these he knew by heart. 
Among them were the Bible, ‘“Aesop’s Fables,” 
“Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “The Life 
of George Washington,” and a few others. He 
walked twelve miles to get a grammar, and he kept 
it right with him until he knew it by heart. There 
was nothing in it he did not know. When he was 
President of the United States, he made an address 
at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery which 
is used in the universities of England as a model of 
English speaking. | 

He was always truthful and honest, so that he 
became known as “Honest Abe.’ Many stories are 
told of his kindness to animals and to everybody 
in need or in distress. In everything he did he 
honored the memory of his mother, and God hon- 
ored him for it. 

He also had a good step-mother. She paid him 
one of the finest tributes he ever received from 
any one, something of which any boy in our day 
might well be proud: “I can say, what scarcely one 
mother in a thousand can say: Abe never gave me 


34 WHEN LINCOLN WAS A BOY 


a cross word or look, and never refused to do any- 
thing I asked him. I must say, Abe was the best 
boy I ever saw or expect to see.’”’ And she had sons 
of her own! 

These are some of the things that helped to make 
Abraham Lincoln a great man, whose name is loved 
and honored by the whole world. 


VI. 
SPIVALENTINE'S( DAY 


“Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of 
his sainis.’—Psatm 116:15. 


E celebrate the birthdays of some men and 

W the deathdays of others. On the twelfth 

of this month we celebrate the birthday of 
Abraham Lincoln, and on the twenty-second that of 
George Washington. But on the fourteenth we cel- 
ebrate the deathday of St. Valentine. 

We do not know when or where St. Valentine 
was born; indeed, we know very little about him. 
He was a priest in Rome and a very good man. 
He loved God, young men and maidens, and little 
children. 

Some one has given this definition of a saint: 
“A saint is a good person who loves God and his 
fellow man—any one who loves twice, one love to 
God and one love to man; any one who loves twice 
is a saint.” 

St. Valentine was a Roman heathen at first, but 
one day he became a Christian. He was arrested 
and persecuted for being a Christian, and a very 
bright man was asked to try to win him back from 
Christianity to idolatry. This man had a beautiful 
girl who was blind. St. Valentine loved the little 
girl and told her about flowers and birds and many 
other pretty things. He asked God for power to 


35 


36 ST. VALENTINE’S DAY 


make her happy. God gave him power to open her 
eyes. The result was that her father and all his 
family became Christians and were baptized. This 
made the heathen ‘hate St. Valentine more and more, 
and on February fourteenth, about the year 270, 
they beat him with clubs and cut off his head. 

St. Valentine had nothing to do with the customs 
connected with his day. Some of these customs 
were observed in ancient Rome before Christ was 
born, and before there were either saints or saints’ 
days. 

It seems that St. Valentine’s Day took the place 
of a heathen festival called Lupercalia, in honor of 
Lupercus, “the wolf destroyer.” It was at this fes- 
tival that the custom arose which hundreds of years 
afterwards was very popular in England and France 
in connection with St. Valentine’s Day. 

On the evening before St. Valentine’s Day young 
people met in a social way and spent a pleasant 
evening together. Among the things they did was 
the placing into some vessel of a select number of 
the names of the young women present by an equal 
number of the young men, after which each young 
man drew out the name of a young woman who 
became his valentine for a year. 

It is said that this custom arose from the fact that 
about this time of the year the birds of England 
choose their mates. 

Besides the choosing of a person for a valentine 
for the year, it became the custom in England for 
the two persons who were valentines to exchange 
presents. Afterwards it became the practice for the 


ST. VALENTINE’S DAY Bye 


gentlemen only to give a present. Usually some 
verses, or at least a motto, went with the present. 
In the course of time the verses were sent without 
any present, and this is the way the day is mostly 
celebrated now. 

An old traveler tells us that in some parts of 
England it was the custom on St. Valentine’s Day 
for the children to meet together in some part of the 
town where they lived, and to go to the house of 
the principal man of the place, who from his win- 
dow threw wreaths and true lover’s knots, with 
which they decorated themselves. They then chose 
the youngest boy in the company and decked him 
out more gaily than the rest. Placing him at their 
head, they marched forward and sang this Val- 
entine’s song: 

“Good morrow to you, St. Valentine, 
Curl your locks as I do mine, 
Two before and three behind; 
Good morrow to you, St. Valentine.” 

In olden times, in England, much time was spent 
in the writing of valentines. Some very beautiful 
messages were written, and those who received them 
were made very happy. The practice of sending 
ugly valentines is a much later one, for which there 
is no excuse. The day’ is intended only for the 
sending of pleasant messages. 

Let us all try to catch the spirit of St. Valen- 
tine, who was kind even to his enemies. Remem- 
ber how happy he made one of his enemies by open- 
ing the eyes of his little blind girl. 

Millions of valentine postcards are sent every 


38 ST. VALENTINE’S DAY 


year, while many of the finer and fancier ones, with 
hearts and cupids and paper lace and love verses, 
are also sent. 

With the beatitiful poem, which someone has 
written as a tribute to St. Valentine, I close my ser- 
mon : 


“Oh, good St. Valentine, 

We lift our voice in praise; 
May long, long life be thine, 
Oh, good St. Valentine, 

This is thy day of days. 

Day when each true love sends 
A message from the heart; 
Day when good friends greet friends, 
And Cupid shoots his dart; 
Oh, good St. Valentine, 

This is thy day of days.” 


VIF 


WHEN GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS A 
BOY 


“Them that honor me I will honor.’—I Sam. 


2:30. 


HE same God that said, “Honor thy father 
le and thy mother,” also said “Them that honor 
me I will honor.” 

When George Washington was a boy he hon- 
ored his parents and his God, and that is why God 
honored him and made of him a great man. If 
we had more boys and girls who honored their 
parents, we should have more men and women who 
honored God. 

George Washington was born near the Potomac 
River, in Virginia, February 22, 1732. Some of 
you boys and girls will help to celebrate the two 
hundredth anniversary of his birth eight years from 
now, and you ought to read some good “Life” of 
Washington before that time so that you may nee 
more about him. 

When Abraham Lincoln was a boy he read 
Weems’ “Life of Washington,” and it helped him 
a great deal in becoming the great man he was. 
Perhaps he felt what Henry W. Longfellow after- 
ward wrote in the poem, “The Psalm of Life”: 

“Lives of great men all remind us, 
We can make our lives sublime; 


And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time.” 


39 


40 WHEN WASHINGTON WAS A BOY 


Many stories are told of George Washington 
when he was a boy, but whether all of them are true 
or not we do not know. But of one thing we 
are sure, and that is that he loved and honored 
his parents, and especially his mother. 

His father died when George was only eleven 
years old. He kissed his children in turn, and said 
to George: “Be good to your mother.” His fa- 
ther was looked upon as a rich man in those days, 
so that George Washington enjoyed more of the 
comforts of life as a boy than Abraham Lincoln 
did. 

He went to school a great deal more than Lin- 
coln did, but he was not as fond of reading as 
Lincoln was, and never became as great a speaker 
as Lincoln. At first he rode to school on horseback — 
in front of a negro servant, but later he had a pony 
of his own, of which he was very proud. 

His step-brother was a _ soldier, and young 
George was early fired with the military spirit, 
and in his school days he became the leader in the 
boyish battles that they fought. One day he 
thrashed a boy who had hurt him, although the 
boy was four or five years older than himself and 
much larger. 

There are two stories which I want to tell about 
Washington, and both of them have to do with his 
love and honor for his mother. 

When he was still a boy, his step-brother, who 
was now Captain Lawrence Washington, wanted 
George to enter the British Navy, and, after much 
coaxing, got his mother’s consent to let him go. His 


WHEN WASHINGTON WAS A BOY 41 


small trunk was packed and taken to the battleship, 
and young George had proudly tried on his new uni- 
form and was getting ready to say farewell, when 
his mother broke down and begged him not to for- 
sake her in her loneliness. He had his heart set 
on going, but he could not bear to see his mother 
weeping like that, so he gave up his plans and re- 
mained at home with his mother. 

He honored his mother, and God honored him 
and made his name great. If he had gone against 
the wish of his mother, the history of our country 
might be very different from what it is, and the 
name of George Washington might not be loved and 
honored by the whole world as it is today. 

He became a great general and helped to win 
the freedom of the colonies, and to form a new 
nation whose first President he became. 

It is said that during the Revolutionary War one 
of his officers was seeking horses in Virginia for 
the colonial army. This officer was a proud fel- 
low, and one day he saw a fine pair of horses in a 
field hitched to a plow which was used by a negro 
slave. The officer said to the slave: “I'll have to 
claim those horses. I’ve been looking for such ani- 
mals for a long time.’ The slave grinned, and went 
on with his plowing. 

The officer waited until another furrow had been 
finished, when he went up to the colored man and 
showed him the sign of his rank. This made the 
slave afraid. ‘‘Lordy,”’ he said, “but you’d better 
see de missis! She’s over yonder.” His black hand 
pointed to a fine old mansion standing among the 


42 WHEN WASHINGTON WAS A BOY 


trees, and with a parting glance at the splendid 
horses, the officer made his way toward the man- 
sion. He rapped loudly with the brass knocker upon 
the door of the old mansion, and soon found him- 
self in the fine old drawing room, where he was 
met by a grave and majestic looking woman. 

“Madam,” he said, bowing very low, “I have 
come to claim your horses in the name of the gov- 
ernment.” “My horses,’ she repeated, giving him 
a sharp look. “Sir, you cannot have my horses. My 
crops are out, and my horses are needed in the 
fields.’ “I am very sorry, madam,” was the polite 
answer, “but the orders of my chief are positive.” 
“And who is your chief?’ The officer seemed to 
grow taller, while his whole person swelled with 
pride. “My chief, madam,” he replied, “is the com- 
mander of the American army, General George 
Washington.”’ A smile softened the handsome face 
of the old woman; then the answer came gently, but 
firmly: “Tell George Washington that his mother 
says he cannot have her horses.”’ The officer apol- 
ogized humbly, and turned away. Washington’s 
mother knew that her son still honored her. 

George Washington also honored God in prayer 
and in worship. I sat in the pew in which he sat 
to worship God in the old Episcopal Church in Alex- 
andria, Virginia, and stood in the pulpit from which 
the Word of God was proclaimed to him. During 
the Revolutionary War he sometimes worshiped in 
the Reformed Church at Germantown, where his 
army was stationed at the time. ) 

While his army was in winter quarters at Valley 


WHEN WASHINGTON WAS A BOY 43 


Forge, he was found one day on his knees in the 
woods engaged in earnest prayer. He honored God, 
and God honored him. 

If we can have men who honor God in charge of 
our national affairs, and if all the men and women 
and children of our country will learn to honor 
Him, He will surely honor us as a nation and will 
make us a blessing to the nations of the world. 


VILL. 
CHILD WELFARE 
Feat evel, wath titel child Sel INGSTAICB 


T no other time in the world’s history has so 
A much been done for the welfare of children 
as is being done at the present time. This 
is the children’s age, and they are beginning to come 
to their own. . 
God wants all children to be well and good and 
happy. Jesus said long ago, “Even so it is not the 
will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of 
these little ones should perish.” It took the world 
a long time to get to the point where Jesus wanted 
it to be. It is only beginning to get there now. 
Jesus always was the Friend of children. When 
mothers brought their little children to Him, that 
He should lay His hands on them and pray, and 
the disciples rebuked them, Jesus said: “Suffer the 
little children, and forbid them not to come unto 
me; for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven.” 
And when the disciples came unto Jesus, and 
asked Him, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom 
of heaven?” He called to him a little child and set 
him in the midst of them, and said, “Verily I say 
unto you, Except ye turn and become as little chil- 
dren, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself 
as this little child, the same is the greatest in the 
kingdom of heaven.”’ 


44 


CHILD WELFARE 45 


That is how He answered their question. But 
He said more than this. He said, “And whoso shall 
receive one such little child in my name receiveth 
me; but whoso shall cause one of these little ones 
that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for 
him that a great millstone should be hanged about 
his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth 
of the sea.” 

We know from all this that God wants the chil- 
dren to be well cared for, and whatever is done 
for the good of their bodies and their minds and 
their spirits will be pleasing to Him. It is really the 
spirit of Christ getting abroad in the world more 
and more, that has led men and women to work 
for the welfare of the children. 

In many of our cities we have baby welfare sta- 
tions, where the little children may be brought once 
a week so that the doctors and the nurses may look 
at them and tell the mothers whether they are all 
right or what should be done for them to make them 
better. In this way much is done for the welfare 
of the children so as to help them to grow in a 
healthful way and to save them from as much sick- 
ness and suffering as possible. 

We may say in answer to the question asked in 
our text, “Is it well with the child?” It is well with 
the child that is born into a Christian home, and 
has the care of a Christian mother. 

This question was first asked by Elisha, the great 
prophet of Israel, about a little boy whom he asked 
God to bring into the home of a good man and 
woman in Shunem, who had been kind to him and 


46 CHILD WELFARE 


gave him a room in their home and food whenever 
he came that way. 

They did not have any children, and one day, 
after Elisha had stopped with them, he said, just 
as he was about to leave, that they would have a 
little son. His promise came true, and the little 
boy was certainly welcome in that home. It was 
well with him because he had such a good father 
and mother, who did all they could for his welfare 
and happiness. 

But when he was quite a boy he went out one 
day into the harvest field to see his father and the 
reapers, and he had a sunstroke. They quickly took 
him home to his mother, and in a short time he 
died on her lap. 

She was very sad, and she took him and laid 
him on the bed where Elisha used to sleep, and 
closed the door and went out. She hurried to 
Elisha, who lived quite a distance from there, and 
when he saw her coming he knew that something 
was wrong. He asked her, “Is it well with thee? 
Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the 
child?” And she answered, “It is well.” 

She told Elisha her trouble, and he went home 
with her and brought the boy back to life again, 
and gave him to his mother. Even if the boy had 
not been brought back to life, it would have been 
well with him, for “God doeth all things well,” and 
the little ones who are with Him are well off. 

There are some children in this world with whom 
it is not well, because they are born into homes 
where they are not welcome or where they do not 


CHILD WELFARE 4.7 


receive the love and care which are necessary for a 
child’s welfare. The condition of children in heath- 
en lands is very sad, and we ought to do all that 
we can to send them the Gospel of Jesus Christ so 
that they may soon enjoy some of the blessings 
which are ours every day and which make it well 
for us and our children. 

It is well with the child that receives the proper 
care, so that its body may grow strong and beauti- 
ful, its mind may be filled with useful knowledge, 
and its spirit may become Christlike. This requires 
much love and attention, which no one can give 
to a child so well as a good Christian mother. 

It is well with the child that is helped to form 
good habits, to be kind in spirit, and to be useful 
in life. 

It is well with the child that, when sickness and 
trouble come, has a good mother to take it on her 
lap and to minister to it. 

It is well with the child that has been taught to 
love God in such a way that, even though He should 
see fit to take it in His arms and carry it in His 
bosom into the “home for little children above the 
bright blue sky,” it would fear no evil, but would 
look upon Him as a dearer Friend than even the 
mother herself. 

It is well with the average child in our country 
today, with all that is being done for it by the home, 
the public school, the Sunday school, the Church, 
and the community. And it will be better with all 
the children of the world as the Gospel spreads and 
the will of God is done on earth as it is done in 
heaven. 


IX. 
TSAY DD WEP PLOW ERS? 


“His lips are as lilies’ —Tur Sone or SoLomon. 
SATB) 


SLOGAN that is used a great deal by the 
florists of our day is: “Say it with flow- 


ers.” We see it on their delivery wagons, 
on their show windows, and on some of the cards 
they tie to the bouquets that are sent out. 

Many persons send flowers to funerals after 
their friends have passed away. Sometimes the 
family sends out notices that read: “Please omit 
flowers.” We all know that the dead body cannot 
see the flowers, however beautiful they may be; 
cannot smell their fragrance; and cannot hear the 
message of love and friendship that they are meant 
to bring. 

It is much better to send the flowers to our friends 
while they live,—when the eyes are able to enjoy 
their beauty, when they can smell their sweet fra- 
grance, and when they are able to hear and under- 
stand the message they bring. 

It is a fine thing to say it with flowers, when 
we want to say to our friends that we love them, 
that we care for them, that we sympathize with them 
when they are sick, and that we want to give them 
cheer and encouragement. The flowers speak a 
beautiful language, and bring a message that makes 
the heart glad. 


48 


SAY IT WITH FLOWERS 49 


God has a way of saying with flowers how much 
He loves us. Of course, He speaks to us in many 
other ways to show His love for us and His good- 
ness toward us. But the flowers are among the 
many messengers who speak to us of His love. And 
He sends the flowers in such large numbers that 
we are almost overcome by His bounty. He fills 
the meadows with daisies and buttercups, and car- 
pets the lawns and the fields with dandelions, and 
sends other beautiful flowers by the millions, and 
all of them bring us a message of love and of 
cheer. 

We are looking forward to the coming of the 
Spring, when Nature wakes up from her winter 
nap and puts on her beautiful garments, and when 
flowers and birds speak to us and sing to us of God’s 
goodness and mercy. 

The florists with their hot-houses produce flow- 
ers for us during the cold winter months, so that 
we are able to say to our friends with flowers that 
we love them and wish them well. But we must 
not forget that it is really God who gives us these 
flowers as well as those with which He adorns the 
fields and the meadows. 

The florist who works with God is able to take 
a common flower, like the aster that grows in the 
garden, and to change it into a large and beautiful 
chrysanthemum. No florist can make a plant or a 
flower. God alone can do that, but the florists have 
done wonderful things with flowers, and they are 
able to make many beautiful bouquets and designs. 

Flowers are said to speak a language. It is some- 


00 SAY IT WITH FLOWERS 


times called “the poetical meaning of flowers.” We 
all know that the rose stands for love. The violet is 
said to denote modesty and faithfulness; the lily- 
of-the-valley, purity and delicacy; the sweet pea, 
unequaled charms; the chrysanthemum, truth; the 
lilac, youthful innocence; the carnation, woman’s 
love; the tulip, enchantment; the peony, bashful- 
ness; the pansy, tender thoughts and fond remem- 
brance ; and the daisy, innocence, peace, hope. Other 
flowers have other meanings and bring other mes- 
sages. 

We read in a beautiful story how God spoke to 
one man through a flower. It happened more than 
a hundred years ago, in a prison in France. 

When the great Napoleon was Emperor of France 
he put many persons into prison because they were 
not pleased with the way he did things. One of 
these was a man who was very wise and a good 
scholar, but he did not believe in God. He thought 
God had forgotten all about him, so he could forget 
about God, and he wrote on the walls of his prison 
cell the words: “All things come by chance.” 

One day, as he was walking up and down his 
cell, he saw a tiny green blade breaking through 
the ground. This was the only living thing he had 
to look at, and he took a great interest in it and 
watered it every day. After a while a flower came 
out. It was white and purple and rose-colored, 
with a beautiful white fringe. "The man began to 
think and wonder, and after a while thoughts of 
God came into his heart. He rubbed out the words 


SAY [IT WITH FLOWERS 51 


he had written on the wall, and wrote these words 
instead: “He who made all things is God.” 

He felt happier after that, and began to think 
that if God could care for the little flower in the 
prison cell and make it so beautiful, He could care 
for him. God was saying to him with this flower 
that He loved him. 

A little girl often came to the prison to see her 
father, who was also a prisoner, and she became 
acquainted with the man who had the flower in his 
cell. She told others how kind this man was to 
his little flower, and at last the story reached the 
ears of Josephine, the beautiful wife of Napoleon. 
She thought that a man who could so love a little 
flower could not be a bad man, and she asked Na- 
poleon to set him free. When he left the prison he 
took the little flower with him and planted it in his 
own garden, and cared for it very tenderly. It was 
his little teacher, for it had taught him to love God 
and to trust Him. 


ae 
THE COME-BACK 


“Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt 
find tt after many days.’—Eccti., 11:1. 


HERE is a toy which is called the come-back, 
al If you roll it away from you, it will come 

back to you again. Children derive a great 
deal of pleasure from this toy, because they can 
sit down and play with it a long time without hav- 
ing to run after it a great deal. 

There is also a kind of top which when made 
to spin will throw off a disc of card, which mounts 
up in curving flight high in the air, and then comes 
around and down to the place from which it start- 
ed, so that the person spinning the top can catch it 
with the hand. This is also a kind of come-back. 

The ancient Australians had a weapon, called 
the boomerang, which acted almost the same way 
as these toys. It was a sickle-shaped weapon, mate 
of wood, and in some countries of ivory or steel, 
varying in length from six inches to three or four 
feet. It had to be thrown with the right hand, and 
would travel thirty yards or more, then make a cir- 
cle of fifty or more yards in diameter, and return 
to the thrower. A certain writer says, “The return 
boomerang is chiefly used as a plaything or for 
killing birds, and is often as dangerous to the throw- 
er as to the object at which it is aimed.” 


52 


THE COME-BACK Do 


Our thoughts, words, and actions often act like 
a come-back or a boomerang. If they are good 
and kind and helpful, they often bring us blessings 
as well as the persons toward whom they are di- 
rected. If they are cruel and spiteful, and inflict 
suffering upon others, they often bring to us the 
same in the end. 

You have heard the story of the boy and the echo. 
He came to his father one day and said that there 
was a boy across the creek who was saucy and said 
unkind things to him. The father understood very 
well what was the matter. He took his boy out into 
the field and told him to say kind words to the boy 
on the other side, and, as a result, the boy called 
back kind words to him. It was only the echo of 
his own words which the boy had heard from the 
other side. It acted like a boomerang that came 
back to himself. 

There was once a tyrant, who tortured the people 
he did not like. One day one of his subjects brought 
to him a new instrument of torture, in the form of — 
a hollow bull. The person to be punished was to be 
placed inside the hollow animal, and when a fire was 
lit underneath, his moans and cries would be some- 
thing like the noise a bull would make. The tyrant 
was pleased with this novel instrument of torture, 
and at once ordered the man who had invented it to 
be the first person put inside to see how it worked. 

But it is much pleasanter to think of the bright 
side of this rule, to see how the good we do comes 
back to us with blessing. In one of His beatitudes 
our Savior says, “Blessed are the merciful: for they 


4 THE COME-BACK 


cI | 


) 


shall obtain mercy.’ This does not mean that the 
mercy will always come back to us from the persons 
to whom we have been merciful, but it means that 
merciful people will find mercy from others, and 
especially from God Himself. 

A come-back comes back at once, and a boom- 
erang returns to the thrower very soon, but our text 
says: “Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou 
shalt find it after many days.” We ought not to 
look for a return of our kind acts at once; it will 
come in God’s own time and in God’s own way. 

Many years ago an English boy was going along 
the road with a heavy bundle, which he was taking 
to a seaport from which he intended to sail to Amer- 
ica. A coach came along the road, and a lady pas- 
senger took pity on him and paid his fare on the 
coach, and talked kindly to him about his future. 


A long time afterward, having been successful in 
life, he had a desire to return to his old home. When 
he landed on the other side, he took the coach to his 
home town. As they went on their way he saw an 
old woman trudging along the road, and, remem- 
bering how he had been helped many years before, 
he stopped the coach and had her taken up at his 
expense. As they talked with each other, he found 
out, to his great surprise, that it was the same 
woman who had helped him when he was a boy. 
She had lost her money and was now poor. He was 
kind to her and helped her, so that she was able 
to spend the remainder of her life in comfort. The 
bread she had cast upon the waters came back to her 
after many days. 


XI, 
fee EDLC NESS (OR ESUS 


“Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and be- 
come as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into 
the kingdom of heaven.’—Matrt. 18:3, 


1 " JE have read and heard a great deal about 

“The Manliness of Christ,’ “The Godli- 

ness of Christ,” “The Kingliness of 

Christ,’ and ‘The Brotherliness of Christ,” but 

have we ever thought of “The Childlikeness of 

Christ?’ That is what I want to preach about this 
time. 

At the very outset I want to remind you that 
there is a great difference between childlikeness and 
childishness. We expect little children to be childish, 
but no one would wish grown up men and women to 
be childish. Paul says: “When I was a child, I 
spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a 
child.” In other words he means to say: ‘When 
I was a child, I was childish; but then he adds: 
“Now that I am become a man, I have put away 
childish things.” But he had not put away child- 
likeness, which is a quality that belongs to all great 
men. 


Jesus being the greatest and most perfect of all 
men had the quality of childlikeness more than any 
one else, and more perfectly. And when He says in 
our text: “Except ye turn, and become as little 


55 


o6 CHILDLIKENESS OF JESUS 


children, ye shall in no wise enter into the king- 
dom of heaven,” He means that we must cultivate 
childlikeness, which is one of the necessary quali- 
ties of the Christian life. And Jesus does not ask 
anything of us which He did not Himself possess, 
and in a perfect way. 

The famous sculptor, Dannecker, after working 
on his great statue of Christ, thought it was about 
as good as he could make it, and he took a little 
girl into his studio to look at it, and asked her what 
she thought of it. After standing in front of the 
statue and looking at it some moments, she said: 
“He was a great man.” And the great sculptor was 
disappointed. That was not the ideal he had set 
before himself. Again he went bravely to work, 
toning down this line and that, putting a different 
look into the face, until it seemed to him the statue 
was about what he wanted it to be. He brought the 
little girl in again, and as she looked upon the won- 
derful statue, she at once cried out: “That was the 
Christ who said, ‘Suffer the little children to come 
unto me!’” And the sculptor was satisfied. In his 
first effort he had brought out the manliness of 
Christ, but in the loving touches he put upon it aft- 
erward, he brought out His childlikeness. 

Jesus Himself was once a little child, and He was 
a natural and normal child, and I suppose He did 
what may be calied childish things, and did them 
perfectly. But at an earlier day than other children 
He put away childish things, because His life’s duty 
dawned upon Him as a boy of twelve, and He had 


CHILDLIKENESS OF JESUS OT 


higher than childish thoughts and feelings from that 
time on. 

But Jesus showed in His life and work as a man 
that He had all the childlike qualities which help to 
make men great and good. We want to look at a 
few of these childlike traits now. 

Sincerity. A little child will always speak the 
truth, and sometimes to the discomfort of the par- 
ents. One of the greatest qualities in the character 
of Jesus was His sincerity. He meant what He said, 
and He said what He meant. 

Trustfulness. Little children trust everybody, and 
especially their parents. A woman once said to the 
little daughter of the missionary Judson: “Were 
you not afraid to journey so far over the ocean?” 
“Why, no, madam,” said the believing child, “father 
prayed for us!” What a wonderful trust Jesus had 
in His Father! He took God at His word. This 
is a quality which all men and women should cul- 
tivate. 

Innocence. We all speak of the sweet and beau- 
tiful innocence of children. The innocence of chil- 
dren is more perfect than any other on earth. The 
purity of most men and women is not that which 
has been kept clean, but that which has been made 
clean. Jesus never did any wrong nor committed 
any sin, therefore His innocence was childlike be- 
cause He kept it clean all His life. 

Humility. Little children are naturally humble. 
It is only when they have been spoiled by their 
parents and friends that they become proud. Jesus 
was meek and lowly, and humble in spirit. He 


o8 CHILDLIKENESS OF JESUS 


washed the disciples’ feet to teach them the lesson 
of humility. 

Simplicity. In their normal state children live a 
simple life, and if. they would be rightly kept and 
trained, they would retain much of that sweet sim- 
plicity throughout life. Jesus always lived the sim- 
ple life. He did not indulge in the luxuries and ex- 
cesses which ruin so many persons. 

Obedience. This is one of the most important 
qualities of child-life, and when children do not 
possess it, the parents are to blame. This was the 
highest trait in the character of Jesus. He came to 
do the Father’s will, and He became obedient even 
unto death, yea, the death of the Cross. 


ALT. 
LESSONS FROM THE PALM TREE 


“A great multitude that had come to the feast, 
when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusa- 
lem, took the branches of the palm trees, and went 
forth to meet Him.”—Joun 12:12, 13. 


N a few weeks we will celebrate Palm Sunday, 
] which is the Sunday before Easter, and the 

Sunday that opens Holy Week, the week of 
our Saviour’s suffering and death. 

I spoke to you about His coming to Jerusalem 
in another sermon and I will not take up that story 
today ; but I want to speak to you at this time about 
the trees from which the people plucked the 
branches which they carried and which they spread 
in the way. 

In the days of Jesus the palm tree, or date-palm, 
was one of the chief trees of Palestine, and even 
more so in the days of David, who is supposed to 
have written the ninety-second Psalm, in which he 
says: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm 
tree.’ 

We may learn many lessons from the palm tree, 
a few of which I want to point out in this ser- 
mon. 


The palm tree is beautiful. The people of the 
East loved it very much, and its beauty made them 
glad. The Jews often gave its name to women, and 


59 


60 LESSONS FROM THE PALM TREE 


their poets often compared their beautiful women 
to it. In the Song of Solomon the writer says about 
the bride: “This thy stature is like to a palm 
tree. 

The palm tree was often planted in the courts of 
palaces and churches, and perhaps palm trees were 
growing in the Temple courts in Solomon’s time. 
The smaller palms are used in our churches on Palm 
Sunday and at other times when we want our 
churches to look beautiful. 

The palm tree is always beautiful and green. 
It is called an evergreen. It seems to be always 
young, no matter how old it may be. Some one has 
said: “Its lifetime is all youth, its year all spring.” 

God wants us to be beautiful and young and fresh, 
like the palm tree. It has been said that beauty is 
only skin-deep. Another proverb says: “Handsome 
is that handsome does.” Real beauty is not that 
which is found on the outside, but it is beauty of 
soul which makes the whole life beautiful. 

One day a great tree fell in the forest. The 
people wondered why this tree fell, and a man went 
to see. He found out the reason. While the out- 
side of the tree was all right, the bark looking sound 
and well, the inside of the tree was rotten through 
and through, and had nothing but a shell on the out- 
side. This trouble was caused by a little worm that 
bored through the bark of the tree many years be- 
fore, and he was followed by other worms, and all 
of them kept eating the fibre of the tree until the 
heart was gone, and the tree fell. 

Sin is like a worm eating its way into the heart and 


LESSONS FROM THE PALM TREE 61 


life of boys and girls, and, if it is not taken away, 
when they grow to be men and women, they will 
fall like the tree in the forest. Christ can make us 
and keep us clean and pure so that we will be 
beautiful and strong like the palm tree. 

The palm tree is straight It rises like a tall mast, 
without a leaf except at the top, where grows a tuft 
of graceful leaves like a parasol. The palm tree is 
the straightest of all trees, and in the days of King 
David it grew to a height of a hundred feet and 
over. 

When the Psalmist says: “The righteous shall 
flourish like the palm tree,” he means they shall be 
straight and upright in their life and character. 
Righteous people are right people,—right with God 
and with man. They are straight in all their ways 
and doings. They do not stoop to crooked and 
wicked things. 

It is said that the palm tree, unlike every other 
tree, grows best if you press it down. The more 
pressure you put upon the tree the more it bears. 
So the good people of the world, the righteous peo- 
ple, have grown stronger under trial and affliction. 
Perhaps this is the reason why the palm branch is 
the symbol of victory. 

The palm tree is useful. “Without fruit a tree 
is little better than a log.” But fruit is not the only 
thing the palm tree is good for. They say that the 
Arabs have three hundred and sixty names for the 
palm tree and that they claim to find as many uses 
for it. The palm trees furnish food, drink, shelter, 
clothing, fuel, timber, building material, baskets, 


62 LESSONS FROM THE PALM TREE 


mats, fibre, paper, starch, brooms, walking sticks, 
sugar, oil, wax, ropes, cloth, dyeing materials, resin, 
and many other products. 

God wants us to be useful, as well as beautiful 
and upright. The Bible says: 


“Even a child maketh himself known by his doings, 
Whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.” 


God has something for every boy and girl to do, 
and if you ask Him, like Samuel did, He will tell 
you what it is. 

Perhaps the Psalmist had the palm tree in mind 
when he said about the righteous man, in the first 
Psalm: 


“And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams 
of water, 

That bringeth forth its fruit in its season, 

Whose leaf also doth not wither; 

And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” 


Perce: 
THEeMEANING OF THRs GROSS 


“Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man 
would come after me, let him deny himself, and take 
up his cross, and follow me.’—Matrt, 16:24, 


FE have come to the time of the Christian 
WW, year when we are led to think of the Cross 
of Christ, and it may be well for us to try 

and learn its meaning. 

The Cross belongs to the whole Christian Church, 
because it is the Cross of our Lord and Saviour, 
Jesus Christ. Some congregations, both Roman 
Catholic and Protestant, have placed the Cross at 
the top of the church steeple, where it stands out 
sharp and distinct, with the sky for a background. 

In many churches the cross is found on the altar, 
and is also used as an ornament of the church furni- 
ture. The Cross has, therefore, become dear to ev- 
ery Christian, and as you children learn to know 
its meaning better, you will think more highly of it 
because of what it stands for. 

1. The Cross ts the badge of Christian disciple- 
ship. Jesus Himself said, “If any man would come 
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, 
and follow me.” 

_ Some Christians wear the Cross as an ornament, 
at the end of a necklace, or as a watch-charm, or in 
some other way. There is no harm in doing this, 


63 


64 THE MEANING OF THE CROSS 


but this is not what Jesus meant by taking up the 
cross. These persons are not Christians because 
they wear the Cross, but they wear the Cross be- 
cause they are Christians. 

The Cross belongs to human life. No matter what 
anyone wishes to accomplish, it will mean cross- 
bearing, paying the price. If one would become a 
scholar, a musician, a successful business-man, a 
Christian: it means that he must deny himself, and 
take up his cross, and follow his ideal. 4 

If you and I want to be true followers of Jesus, 
we dare not be afraid of the cross, but must be 
willing to take it up, and to carry it faithfully to 
the end. If you drag your cross, it will be very 
heavy, because you will have to drag it alone. But 
if you carry your cross, it will be light, because 
Jesus will help you to carry it. 

2. The Cross 1s a token of God’s love. “God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth on him icy not perish, 
but have eternal life.” 

We see the fullness of God’s love not at the man- 
ger, but at the Cross. When God gave His Son, 
He not only sent His Son into the world, but also 
allowed Him to die on the Cross. 

Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, 
that a man lay down his life for his friends.” He 
laid down his life for us, and at the Cross we see 
how much He loves us. 

By being willing to take up our cross and bear- 
ing it for His sake we can show Him how much 
we love Him. 


THE MEANING OF THE CROSS | 65 


Whenever we look at the Cross, or think of the 
Cross, let us not forget that it is a token of love— 
God’s love, Christ’s love, our love. 

3. The Cross is a symbol of suffering. 

It was on the Cross that Jesus suffered—and 
died. If we read the story of His suffering, and 
sit down and think how He must have suffered 
as they nailed Him to the Cross and as He hung 
there in the hot sun, and at last gave up His life 
for our sakes, how can we help but love Him and 
adore Him and worship Him? 

But the greatest suffering which Jesus bore on 
the Cross was not due to the wounds in His hands 
and His feet and His side. His greatest suffering 
was caused by the sin of the world which He car- 
ried in His heart, and which made Him feel for a 
short time as though His Father Himself had for- 
saken Him. But His Father looked on Him again 
with favor, and He won the victory. 

4. The Cross ts the emblem of salvation. 

Because Jesus was willing to die upon the Cross, 
He became the Saviour of the world. But as the 
emblem of salvation the cross refers not only to 
the death, but to the whole life of Jesus. 

Jesus said, during His ministry, “And I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
myself.” 

While He was hanging on the Cross, the Jews 
mocked Him. Some of them wagged their heads 
and said, “Thou that destroyest the temple, and 
buildest it in three days, save thyself: if thou art the 
Son of God, come down from the cross.” In like 


66 THE MEANING OF THE CROSS 


manner also the chief priests mocking Him, with 
the scribes and elders, said, ‘“He saved others; him- 
self he cannot save.” Although they said this to 
mock Him, it was a great truth. If Jesus had 
saved Himself, He would not be our Saviour; but 
because He did not save Himself, He has become 
our Saviour and the Saviour of the whole world, 
and the Cross will always be the emblem of salva- 
tion. 

St. Paul says: “For the word of the cross is to 
them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are 
saved it is the power of God.” 

5. The Cross is the sign of victorious conquest. 

The empty Cross, and not the crucifix, is the 
sign of Christ’s victory. The empty cross and the 
empty tomb show that they could not hold the 
world’s Saviour. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul 
shouts: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O 
death, where is thy victory? O death, where .is thy 
sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power 
of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, who 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Ohristy, 

We place the Cross on our “conquest flags,” as 
we march forward to win the world for Christ. 
Wherever men and women go to preach the Gospel 
of Christ, they are said to march under the banner 
of the Cross. 

“In Hoc Signo Vinces,” was painted on the ban- 
ners of the Crusaders. It means, “In this sign you 
shall conquer’’—the sign of the Cross. 


’ 


XIV. 
AN EASTER MESSAGE 


“But some one will say, How are the dead raised? 
and with what manner of body do they come? 
* * * God giveth it a body even as tt pleased 
him.”—I Cor. 15:35, 38. 


N Easter Sunday we celebrate the resurrec- 
CG) tion of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

That is what makes Easter one of the hap- 
piest days of the whole Christian year. 

Before Jesus died He told His disciples that He 
would rise again on the third day, and because He 
arose we also shall arise. 

St. Paul says a great deal about the resurrection 
in the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the 
Corinthians, from which our text is taken. He is 
very sure of the risen Christ because he saw Him. 
He declares: “But now hath Christ been raised 
from the dead, the firstfruits of them that are 
asleep.” 

The resurrection of Christ was not a return to 
this life, as was the raising of Lazarus, but it was 
a resurrection to the life which death can never 
touch. Our resurrection, also, will be a rising into 
that blessed life which death will never be able 
to touch. 

St. Paul has a great deal to say about the resur- 
rection body. He says: “But some one will say, 


67 


68 AN EASTER MESSAGE 


How are the dead raised? and with what manner 
of body do they come?” And then he answers 
these questions by using pictures from nature. He 
says: ‘Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself 
sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which 
thou sowest thou sowest not the body that shall be, 
but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of 
some other kind; but God giveth it a body even as 
it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its 
own.” | 

The farmers and gardeners are beginning to get 
ready to plant their seeds from which they ex- 
pect to gather a rich harvest during the summer. 
Every seed that is placed into the ground dies in a 
sense, but the life-germ that is in it grows and 
comes up through the ground and becomes beautiful 
and glorious. 

How fitting it is that Easter should come at this 
time of the year in our climate. We have a real 
resurrection of nature every spring. In winter the 
trees and the shrubs, the gardens and the forests, 
the meadows and the fields seem dead. But in the 
spring there is a resurrection, an awakening, a new 
life all around, and soon that which seemed dead 
will be full of life and beauty. The trees will be 
covered with leaves, and the shrubs with flowers; 
the gardens will glow with new beauty, and the for- 
ests will wear their garments of glory; the mea- 
dows will be spread with a beautiful green car- 
pet, and the fields will be full of life and glad- 
ness. 

If God takes such care of nature and brings new 


AN EASTER MESSAGE 69 


life out of death, how much more will He take care 
of us, who are made in His image, and are to bear 
His likeness forever! 

I believe that the death of our present body will 
set free a new and more beautiful and perfect body, 
which will be suited to the world in which we shall 
live forever. The body we now have is well suited 
to the world in which we now live, but, as St. Paul 
says, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
of God.” We shall need a different body in the 
world to which we are going. 

When I was a boy I took a great interest in na- 
ture, and as I went out into the country I watched 
the cocoons into which the caterpillars had spun 
themselves in the fall. Their little cradles were 
rocked by the winter winds as they hung on the 
bushes, and when the warm spring sun kissed them 
the beautiful butterflies came forth. They left the 
dead shell hanging on the bushes as they sailed away 
in the summer atmosphere. What a difference there 
is between the caterpillar, which some people call 
an ugly worm, and the glorious butterfly which 
floats in the sunlight, and yet they are the same 
creature. 

I believe the body that we shall have in our new 
life after the resurrection will be as much more 
beautiful than the body we now have as the butter- 
fly is more beautiful than the caterpillar. St. Paul 
has a beautiful way of saying it: “It is sown in 
corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown 
in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in 
weakness ; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural 


70 AN EASTER MESSAGE 


body ; it is raised a spiritual body. * * * And 
as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall 
also bear the image of the heavenly.” 


If God can change a caterpillar into a butterfly ; 
if He can change an ugly grub that lives in the water 
and in the mud into a beautiful dragon-fly that 
sails in the sunlight ; if He can change a hellgramite 
into a beautiful insect with silken wings; then I be- 
lieve He can also change me into a heavenly being 
that shall be like Christ. 

The question, “With what manner of body do 
they come?” is answered, as St. Paul also answers 
it in Philippians 3:21, “Who shall fashion anew 
the body of our humiliation, that it may be con- 
formed to the body of His glory.” 

Surely you and I will be satisfied if our resur- 
rection bodies shall be like that of the risen and 
glorified Christ! 


XV. 
MAKING PEARLS 


“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that 
is a merchant seeking goodly pearls: and having 
found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all 
that he had, and bought it.’-—Marr. 13:45, 46. 


OME of the best things we have in life come 
S from suffering, and that is the way pearls 
are made. 

Pearls have been known for more than three 
thousand years, being the first jewels spoken of 
in the earliest writings we know. | 

Some of the other gems and precious stones must 
be cut and polished to look beautiful, but pearls are 
lovely without this work. That is why pearls have 
been in use so long, because they are found ready- 
made, and can be used at once. 

Pearls have been called frozen drops of dew, and 
long ago people thought they were drops of dew 
made solid, and some even thought that they fell 
down from Heaven. 

Pearls, as you know, are generally found in the 
shell of the oyster or the mussel, and it is very in- 
teresting to know how they get there and how they 
are made. 

It is said that when a grain of sand gets inside 
the oyster shell it hurts the oyster just as it hurts us 
when we get a particle of something in our eye. 


71 


(2 MAKING PEARLS 


When that happens tears begin to form and our eyes 
begin to water so that the dirt may be washed out. 
The oyster also sheds a tear when sand gets into its 
shell and touches its delicate body. But the tears 
which the oyster sheds are not like our tears, made 
of salt and water, but they are made of lime and 
water. The lime becomes hard and forms a layer of 
“mother of pearl,” which is beautiful and shiny. As 
the oyster keeps on covering this spot with lime- 
water it forms a little knob of pearl fastened to the 
shell, which is called a blister pearl. 

But the most beautiful pearls are those which 
are perfectly round, and they are made in a differ- 
ent way. They are not caused by a grain of sand 
getting into a shell, but by a tiny worm which bores 
its way into the oyster body. The oyster at once 
gets to work to enclose this little worm with pearl, 
and at last there is the beautiful round pearl which 
is so valuable. 

It is said that the largest and most perfect pearl 
known is an inch and a half long and one inch 
wide, and is worth about two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. The most beautiful pearl in the 
world is in the Moscow Museum. 

Some years ago I visited the Tower of London, 
where the royal gems of England are kept. Among 
them are diamonds and pearls and other precious 
stones, which are valued at fifteen million dollars. 

Many of the finest pearls are secured by divers, 
who go down to the bottom of the ocean and bring 
up the shells in which the pearls are found. These 


MAKING PEARLS 73 


divers have to run many risks, from ocean currents, 
rocks, sharks, and other troubles. 

We learn a very beautiful lesson from the mak- 
ing of pearls. They come from the pain and suf- 
fering of the oyster, which makes the lovely pearl 
as a result of the hurt or injury it receives. 

Many of the best things in the world have come 
to us as the result of suffering. 

John Milton, who wrote “Paradise Lost,” one of 
the greatest poems in the English language, had 
written a few things before he became blind, but 
the world would not remember him for any of 
them. When he was forty-four years old he be- 
came blind, and then, like the oyster, he began to 
make pearls. God opened the eyes of his soul so 
that he could see wonderful things, and he wrote 
“Paradise Lost,’ which has placed him among the 
six greatest poets in the world’s history. If he 
had not become blind he might never have written 
“Paradise Lost,’ and the world would not have 
this great and beautiful pearl which has made him 
so famous. 

The Italian poet, Dante, was driven out of the 
city of Florence, which he lovéd very dearly, and 
because of his sufferings he was driven to write 
“The Divine Comedy,” which placed him also among 
the world’s six greatest poets, the other four being 
Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare and Goethe, and all 
of these had their troubles. 

How much better it is, when trouble and sorrow 
come into one’s life, to make the best of them, than 
to brood over them and to murmur and complain. 


v4 MAKING PEARLS 


If we do like the oyster does, we can make some- 
thing good and beautiful come out of our suf- 
ferings. 

Jesus Himself, who gave us the parable which is 
our text, was a “Man of Sorrows,” and He made 
His death on the cross result in the greatest good 
to the world, so that we are all better because He 
suffered and died for us. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is the pearl of great 
price which Jesus wants us to buy, even though 
we must sell everything else we have to get it. This 
is the pearl He made for us through His great 
suffering, and if we seek first the Kingdom all oth- 
er things that are good for us shall be added unto 
us. 


XVI. 
HAPPY SPRING-TIME 


“For, lo, the winter 1s past; the rain is over and 
gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of 
the singing of birds is come.’—THE SONG OF SOL- 
oMON 2:1], 12. 


\ ‘ YINTER seems to be the longest season of 

the year, and everybody is glad when 

Spring comes. The seasons are about alike 

in length, but every one of the other seasons seems 

to be shorter than Winter, because the latter is 
stern and cold and rough and dreary. 

Spring seems to be the happiest of all the seasons. 
This may be due to the fact that it follows right 
after Winter, and because the change is so much 
greater than that which takes place when the other 
seasons blend into each other. 

In winter the ground is hard and frozen, the 
trees are bare, the gardens are desolate, there are 
scarcely any birds, and no flowers are seen out of 
doors. It almost seems as though all nature were 
dead. 

But nature is not dead. Below the hard and 
frozen ground there is life in every root and in 
every seed. They are getting ready to dress the 
trees with leaves, the gardens and fields with flow- 
ers, and to welcome back the birds in the Spring. 

Some one has written a beautiful poem which fits 


75 


76 HAPPY SPRING-TIME 


in right here. If I knew the author’s name I would 
mention it and thank him for the poem. 


“Where are the snowdrops?” said the sun; 
“Dead,” said the frost, 
“Buried and lost, 
Every one!” 


“A foolish answer,” said the sun; 
“They did not die 
Asleep they lie, 
Every one!” 


“And I will wake them, I, the sun, 
Into the light 
All clad in white, 
Every one!” 


The sun has a great deal to do, has almost every- 
thing to do, with the coming of Spring. In winter 
the sun is farthest away from us, being below the 
equator. On the twenty-first of March the sun is 
just over the equator, and it is the beginning of 
Spring. At that time day and night are alike. Then 
the sun begins to come north, and on the twenty- 
first of June, the beginning of Summer, we have 
the longest day and the shortest night. After a 
short rest, the sun begins to turn again and goes 
southward so that by the twenty-first of September 
he crosses the equator again, making day and night 
of equal length. That is the beginning of Autumn. 
After going southward for three more months, he 
reaches the most southern point on the twenty-first 
of December, giving us the beginning of Winter, and 
the shortest day and the longest night. 

Now the Winter is past; the sun has crossed the 
equator; happy Springtime is here; and the two 


HAPPY SPRING-TIME TT 


other happy seasons are before us—the Summer 
with its harvests, and the Autumn with its fruits. 

I think we ought to be glad to live in this part of 
the world, where Springtime and Easter-tide walk 
together. The coming of Spring is a parable of the 
resurrection. That which seemed dead during the 
Winter has put on new life. 


“The flowers appear on the earth; 
The time of the singing of birds is come.” 


There was once a great man who thought it so 
good for everybody to see and love God’s beauti- 
ful gift of flowers that he used to say, “If you 
have money enough to buy two loaves, buy one 
loaf and a bunch of flowers.” 

Here is something beautiful I read about vio- 
lets. Jam sure you will like it: 

“Violets again—little wet violets, and there is the 
clean, sweet breath of spring. One could lift his 
head and drink deep—taste the newness, this grate- 
ful freshness that is about. There is a quicker leap 
of life, and Nature seems to stir with a kind of ten- 
derness. There is a deeper glow on the faces of 
children—easier happiness on a tiny nestling face. 
Girlhood comes to outward whiteness again—the 
cool, crisp sign of spring. And in all is the subtle 
charm of violets—little human, tremulous things, 
gentle as love’s whisper, pure as purity. Restful, 
quaint little flower, too-simple, appealing. Flower 
to lay on a baby that has died—to give as seemly 
tribute to womanhood—to press against the face as 


78 HAPPY SPRING-TIME 


ease-ment for tired heart. Such a dear, peaceful 
little flower, all alone in flower-land, emblem of the 
world’s simplest and best, and waiting to mock a 
false face, or adorn the beauty that comes from 
the soul.” 

The awakening of nature in the Spring is a real 
resurrection. Out of what seemed to be dead comes 
real and beautiful life. Why should we have any 
doubts or fears about our resurrection? The same 
God who calls the flowers out of the earth and 
brings the birds back to us, will also call us into 
the land of eternal spring where we shall shine as 
the stars forever and ever. 


XVII. 
Pe EEE BOXES 


“Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil 
the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom.’ — 
SONG oF SoLtomon 2:15. 


HE plants and flowers of spring have many 
enemies, and some of them are spoiled or 


killed before they can grow up. All kinds 
of insects and worms get after the plants and flow- 
ers, and they are not as nice and beautiful as they 
would be without these enemies. Some insects, 
however, are the friends of the plants and flowers 
and scatter their pollen and their seeds so that they 
are more beautiful and more fruitful. 

But our text speaks of those animals which in- 
jure and destroy the plants, especially the vines in 
the vineyards when they are in blossom in the spring. 
The writer talks about the little foxes that spoil the 
vineyards. 

You know foxes are very sly animals, so that 
people sometimes say of a man, “He is as sly as a 
fox.” Foxes live in burrows in the ground, and 
their burrows have many openings, so that they 
can get in and out in all sorts of sly ways. When 
dogs are chasing the foxes and watch at one hole to 
catch them, they get out at another hole and run 
away. 

Foxes sometimes spoil the grape vines when they 


79 


80 THE LITTLE FOXES 


burrow in the ground and kill the roots. They also 
trample on the tender vines and bruise them and 
spoil the flowers. When the grapes are ripe foxes 
sometimes eat the grapes and suck the juice and 
spoil many of the clusters of grapes. You have 
heard of the fable of the fox and the grapes. 

The writer of the text speaks of “the little foxes.” 
Even little foxes can do a great deal of harm, and 
can spoil the vineyards when they are in blossom. 

Children are like tender vines that are blooming, 
and there are many little foxes that try to spoil 
them. Sin is like a sly fox that tries to spoil the 
tender vine, and it is the little sins that children 
must watch out for. Someone has said, “The little 
sins get in at the windows and open the doors for the 
big house-breakers.” 

Many children form bad habits which seem only 
little things at first, but they often spoil the whole 
life. There are many stories told of the little things 
which, if allowed to go on, will become big and will 
do a great deal of harm. 

A young soldier was shooting for a prize. When 
his turn came to shoot he took his place and pointed 
his rifle at the target. His hand was steady and his 
eye was clear, but when he fired he missed the 
mark. What was the matter? There was a bit of 
rust in his gun-barrel. He had not kept the inside 
of his gun-barrel clean. It was only a little fox, 
but it spoiled the vine. 

Holland is a very flat country. It is lower than 
the level of the sea, which is kept out by large banks 
of earth called dykes. It is a terrible thing for a 


THE LITTLE FOXES 81 


leak to come in the dyke. At first it may be only a 
little crack, but if it is not closed at once it becomes 
larger and larger, and soon the waters rush in and 
flood the country. 

One evening a little boy was walking along the 
dykes and he saw a little hole in one of them. He 
knew what that meant, and instead of running home, 
as some little boys would have done, he put his hand 
against the little hole to keep the water from com- 
ing through. He thought someone might soon come 
and take his place. But no one came, and the night 
came on, and it was very cold and dark. And there 
the little boy stood all night with his little hand 
against the hole to keep the water from coming in. 

Early the next morning the minister came along 
and he found the little boy at his post, almost 
frozen and very tired, but he saved the country 
from great damage and harm. 

Now there are many little foxes which try to spoil 
the boys and the girls, but I do not have room to 
tell you all about them. I can only mention some 
of them. Perhaps in another sermon I can tell you 
more about them. These are the little foxes that 
you must watch and guard against that they do not 
spoil your vine and ruin your life: a little lie, a little 
theft, a little fit of temper, a little act of disobedi- 
ence, a little oath or bad word, a little act of selfish- 
ness, a little jealousy, a little laziness ; and there are 
a great many other little foxes that spoil the vines. 
If we do not get rid of the little foxes they will 
grow big and will do a great deal of harm. 


XVIII. 
A FAIRYLAND OF LIGHT 


“IT am the light of the world.” “Ye are the light 
of the world.’—JouN 8:12 AND Mart. 5:14. 


SHORT time ago I took a ferry boat to 
AN cross from Jersey City to New York City 

late in the evening. It seemed more like a 
fairy boat than a ferry boat because of the won- 
derful sight I saw as I stood on the front deck. If 
you have never come to New York in this way after 
dark you do not know what a wonderful sight 
it is; and if you have seen it in this way, you will 
never forget the sight. 

New York is indeed a fairyland of fight As far 
as the eye can see, across the river, up the river, 
down the river, there are thousands and thousands 
of lights. Even in a single one of the great sky- 
scrapers there are thousands of lights. 

And there are many electric signs with changing 
letters and words, spelling out and telling out what 
they are to make known to the world. 

More than ten years ago, after a trip to Europe, 
our steamer arrived south of Long Island when 
it was dark and we saw the lights of Coney Island 
and the other places along the coast, and this south- 
ern view of the lights of Greater New York and its 
surroundings made it appear like a fairyland of 
light. 


§2 


A FAIRYLAND OF LIGHT 83 


New York City is wonderful in the day-time, 
but much more wonderful at night. If one could 
look down upon it from the Woolworth Building 
at night, as I have looked down upon it in the day- 
time, the sight must indeed be glorious. This build- 
ing is sixty stories high, seven hundred and ninety- 
two feet and one inch, and is the tallest and most 
beautiful office building in the world. 

I have seen pictures which show how New York 

City would look at night from the top of this 
building, and they make one wish he could see the 
sight. : 
In going on one of the New England steamboats, 
through the East River and under the Brooklyn 
Bridge and the other great bridges, one sees the city 
from the other side, in fact he sees Brooklyn and 
New York from the middle, and again this great 
city looks like a fairyland of light. 

But most wonderful of all is the sight that greets 
you in the very heart of the city, as you enter upon 
the Great White Way and go up or down those 
twenty or more blocks and see the greatest electrical 
display in the world. You cannot help but feel 
that you are in a fairyland of light. 

I left the city in the afternoon on my way home, 
again on a ferry boat, and I thought the magic of 
the city was gone. But again my boat was changed 
into a fairy boat. It was about five o’clock, and 
the sun was just far enough down in the west to 
shine into the thousands of windows in the build- 
ings of New York, and this also had a wonderful 
effect, because the windows flashed like diamonds 


&4 A FAIRYLAND OF LIGHT 


as they reflected the light of the sun, so that the 
city was once more a fairyland of light. 

And it is the sun, we are told, that is back of all 
the light we have by day and by night. The fuel 
that is used in making the electricity, without which 
most of these wonders would not be possible, is 
stored-up sunshine that has been hidden away for 
millions of years. 

But now comes the most wonderful thing of all. 
Jesus does not call the sun the light of the world, 
but He says, “I am the light of the world.” “Ye 
are the light of the world.” Greater and more won- 
derful than the millions of lights in the windows of 
New York, greater than the wonders of the Great 
White Way, all of which are a reflection of the 
light of the sun; greater than all of these are the 
men and the women and the children of New York 
who reflect the light of Christ, who is the light of 
the world. 

It is not the buildings of New York, or the parks, 
or the subways, or the lights of the Great White 
Way, that make the city great, but the people who 
are init. None of these things make the city good, 
none of them make it bad, but the city is made good 
or bad by the people who are in it. | 

Christ is the light of the world, and the good 
people are those who reflect this light, and they be- 
come the light of the world. As the windows re- 
flect the light of the sun, so must you and I re- 
flect the light of Christ in our lives. 

When a room is dark you might bring in a 
bucket and shovel and work all night trying to 


A FAIRYLAND OF LIGHT 85 


shovel out the darkness and to make the room light, 
but when the first rays of the rising sun come in 
through the windows the darkness is gone at once. - 

Men may try many ways of getting rid of the 
darkness of sin and evil in the world, but when 
Christ shines into the hearts of the people the 
darkness disappears. 

There are some persons who say that New York, 
which I have called a fairyland of light, is a very 
wicked city. I do not know whether it is any more 
wicked than other cities in proportion to their size, 
but I do know that the only hope for New York, 
or any other city or town or village, to become what 
it ought to be, is to have Christ as its light. As He 
enters into the hearts of the men and women and 
children of any place they will become the light of 
the world, and will make the whole world a fairyland 
of light. 

It is said that a beautiful palace of ice was once 
built for a Russian prince. In the daytime it looked 
very grand and stately, but it was so cold and cheer- 
less that no one cared to enter it. When night came 
on, a boy with a lighted candle went through the 
door, and at once the whole place was filled with 
warmth and gladness. The palace seemed to have 
caught the sheen of the pearly gates of heaven. 

~ Ye are the light of the world * * *. Even 
so let your light shine before men; that they may see 
your good works, and glorify your Father who is 
in heaven.” 


PUdG 
LOVE AND FEAR 


“There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth 
out fear.’—I JoHN 4:18. 


ANY years ago I heard a minister lecture 

M on “Two Snakes in Eden.” The two 

snakes about which he spoke were fear 

and worry. He tried to show that these two 

snakes take away much of the peace and happiness 

of life, and keep it from being the paradise which 
God wants it to be. 

The Bible has a great deal to say about fear. The 
word is found about five hundred times in the Bible. 
The words, “Fear not” are used quite often. The 
Bible also has a great deal to say about love, the 
word “love” being used about as often as the word 
nieatar 

There are some persons who like to make children 
afraid. They scare them by making them believe 
all kinds of things that are not true. Even parents 
sometimes try to use fear to make their children . 
obey. Many children are afraid of the dark be- 
cause they are made to believe that all kinds of 
ugly and bad things are found in the dark. I be- 
lieve it is very wrong to create this kind of fear 
in a child’s mind. : 

Sometimes the fears of childhood cling to a per- 
son in after life. We read about a girl who was 


86 


LOVE AND FEAR 87 


very much frightened when she took her first ride 
in a railroad train. Every now and then she hid 
her head in her mother’s arms and cried, “Oh, moth- 
er! I’m afraid; it’s so ugly under the arches.” 
Even when she was a middle-aged woman she had 
a horror for those same ugly places under the arches 
whenever she rode in a train. Perhaps her mother 
could have taken away that fear if she had made a 
few explanations to her when she was a child. 

Our Saviour had a great deal of trouble with His 
disciples about fear. One time He was in a boat 
with them crossing the Sea of Galilee, when a great 
storm came up and the waves dashed over the boat, 
but Jesus was asleep. They came to Him and 
awoke Him, saying, “Save, Lord; we perish.” He 
said to them, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little 
faith?’ Then He arose and rebuked the winds and 
the sea; and there was a great calm. If the dis- 
ciples had had greater love for Jesus they would 
have trusted Him more and would not have been so 
much afraid. 

It is said that one time Julius Caesar, the great 
Roman soldier, was in a ship that was overtaken by 
a storm at sea. The captain of the ship was very 
much afraid and full of terror. The conqueror 
said to him, “Why do you fear for the ship? Do 
you not know that it carries Caesar?” 

An English officer was once drafted to go abroad 
with his regiment. He took his wife and children 
with him on the voyage. They had not been many 
days at sea when a terrible storm arose, and many 
on board were afraid that it would destroy the ship 


88 LOVE AND FEAR 


and they should all lose their lives. The officer's 
wife was also very much afraid, but she noticed that 
her husband was calm and composed in the midst 
of it all. She scolded him and said that he did not 
love her and the children as he should, for if he 
was not concerned for his own safety, he ought to 
be for theirs. He did not say anything, but at once 
left the cabin, and came back in a short time with 
his drawn sword in his hand. With a stern look he 
went over to his wife and pressed the point of the 
sword against her breast. She did not seem a bit 
scared, but only smiled at him. ‘What!’ said he, 
“are you not afraid when a drawn sword is at your 
breast?” “No,” she answered, ‘‘not when J know 
that it is in the hand of one who loves me.” “And 
would you have me,” replied he, “to be afraid of 
this storm and tempest, when I know it is in the 
hand of my Heavenly Father, who loves me?” That 
officer had the kind of love for God which casts 
out fear. 

When a bird is first caught it is afraid of every- 
thing and everybody, and it will not sing until that 
fear is gone. 

When children first go to school they are afraid 
of everything, and they will not learn anything un- 
til that fear is gone. 

As long as men were afraid of nature they did 
not make much progress in knowledge and power, 
but since they have learned to love and study and 
use nature they have made wonderful progress. 

We are told that if we fear God we shall have 
nothing else to fear. This fear of God does not 


LOVE AND FEAR 89 


mean dread or terror, but the kind of respect and 
reverence for God which grow out of true love. 

Perfect love for God also takes away the fear of . 
death. St. Paul says, “The last enemy that shall 
be abolished is death.” There is no death for the 
Christian. What we call death is Christ coming to 
take us home, and if we love Him we will not be 
afraid of Him. 


LITTLE MOTHERS 


“As is the mother, so is her daughter.’—EzeEK. 
16 :44. 


A NOTHER Mothers’ Day is past, and [ hope 


every one of you did something to honor 
your mother and to make her happy, or, if 
she is gone, to honor her memory. 

But today I want to tell you about little mothers, 
of whom we find one now and then, and without 
whom the world would be much poorer. 

A little mother is a sister who takes the place of 
the mother in the home, either because the mother 
has died or is too sickly and feeble to care for her 
children. This daughter becomes the little mother 
to the other children of the family. 

Our text says, “As is the mother, so is her 
daughter.” This is an old proverb, and in the chap- 
ter from which the text is taken it is used in a bad 
sense. But it may also be used in a good sense, and 
that is the way in which I want you to think of it. 

A little mother is a good daughter and a good 
sister. She has learned the things which make her 
a little mother from her own mother, and she tries 
to deal with the smaller children whose little moth- 
er she is as their own mother would deal with them 
if she could. | 

In the Book of Exodus we read the story of 


90 


LITTLE MOTHERS 91 


Moses, who was born at a time when the ruler of 
Egypt said about the Israelite children: “Every son 
that is born, ye shall cast into the river, and every 
daughter ye shall save alive.” 

When Moses was born, his mother saw that he 
was a goodly child and hid him three months. And 
when she could no longer hide him, she made an ark 
of bulrushes and put the baby Moses into it and 
laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. 

Then his sister Miriam became a little mother to 
him. She stood afar off and watched to see what 
would become of her little brother. The daughter 
of the king came down to the river to bathe, and 
she saw the ark among the flags and sent one of her 
maidens to fetch it. She opened the basket and saw 
the pretty baby who was crying, and she pitied him 
and said: “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 
Then the little mother, who had been watching, 
came running up to the princess and said: “Shall 
I go and call thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, 
that she may nurse the child for thee?’ So she 
ran and called her mother, and Moses was given 
into her care, and she brought him up until he was 
old enough to go to the king’s palace as the son of 
the princess. 

I am sure Miriam, who helped to save the life of 
her baby brother, loved him very dearly, and often 
was a little mother to him and helped her mother 
to bring him up. 

I know a family in which the mother was sickly, 
and, after lingering awhile in her weakness, God 
took her to Himself. She left a family of seven 


92 LITTLE MOTHERS 


children, and the oldest daughter, who was a mere 
girl, became the little mother of the family. She 
did her work in a wonderful way, doing the house- 
work and caring for the six other children. A few 
years ago she married and started a home of her 
own, and the duties of the little mother were taken 
up by the next sister who now has charge of the 
family. The father has to be away from home a 
great deal, and these two daughters have been the 
little mothers of the family and have done their 
part very well. 

One day a rich woman, looking from the window 
of her home in New York City, saw little girls car- 
rying babies in their arms, all too heavy for such 
children. She found out that these little girls were 
taking care of their baby brothers and sisters while 
their mothers were away all day earning a living for 
the family. 

This rich woman felt that something ought to be 
done for these little mothers so that they should not 
become old too soon. She began by taking small 
parties of them into the country for outings. In 
this way began “The Little Mothers’ Aid,’ an as- 
sociation which has been carrying on this work for 
about twenty-five years, and now has four houses 
in the city, and a summer house in the country, 
where joy is brought to the hearts of hundreds of 
these little mothers. 

We read about a little mother in a family of nine 
children, five boys and four girls. Her older sis- 
ter married and the care of the family fell upon her. 
She raised all the rest of the children, and lived to 


LITTLE MOTHERS 93 


see them marry, one after another, until they were 
all gone and she was left alone. They all loved her, 
and named their babies after her. She earned her 
living by teaching and by giving readings and lec- 
tures. 

At last the end came. Her work as a little moth- 
er was done, and she fell asleep. The brothers and 
sisters laid her remains by the side of the father 
and mother, and as they went home they realized for 
the first time all that she had done for them, and 
what a good little mother she had been. 


3 XXI. 
ANTS AS TEACHERS 


“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, 
and be wise.”—PRov. 6:6. 


OW the bright and beautiful summer days 
are coming, and it seems a little hard to sit 
in the school room. But vacation is not far 

off, and then the school room will be left behind 
for awhile. 

But, do you know, boys and girls, that our days 
of learning will never be done so long as we are in 
this world. Our whole life is a school, and we have 
many teachers. We learn not only from men and 
women, but also from boys and girls, from animals, 
birds and insects. 

Today I want to tell you about one of the smallest 
teachers you can ever have, and yet it is one from 
whom you can learn many things. This teacher is 
the ant, and I hope, if you have any chance this 
summer, you will try to learn something from the 
ants and to learn more about ants. 

Ants are mentioned only twice in the Bible, and 
both times in the Book of Proverbs, 6:6 and 30:25. 
Our text is taken from those beautiful verses in 
Proverbs 6:6-8, which read: “Go to the ant, thou 
sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which 
having no chief, overseer, or ruler, provideth her 


94 


ANTS AS TEACHERS 95 


bread in the summer, and gathereth her food in the 
harvest.” 

The other verse about the ants says: “The ants 
are a people not strong, yet they provide their food 
in the summer.” 

While our text is addressed to the lazy man— 
the sluggard—it has a lesson for each one of us, 
whether lazy or not. 

Many men have gone to school to the ants, and 
have learned a great deal from them. Whole books 
have been written about the ants, and from these 
we can learn many things which it would take us 
years to learn for ourselves. These men have 
studied ants in their nests, while at work, and tell 
us a great deal about their habits and doings. Some- 
times they brought whole ant colonies into their 
homes, where they studied them under the micro- 
scope and tried many experiments to learn more 
about them. 

There are only a few things about ants for which 
I have room in this sermon, but I tell you these 
in the hope that you will be so much interested that 
you will try to find out some more things for 
yourselves, and that you will get books from your 
libraries and read all you can about these interest- 
ing little creatures. 

There are many kinds of ants. Some are black, 
some white, some red, some yellow. Some ants are 
very small, less than a sixteenth of an inch in 
length; others are more than an inch long; and 
many sizes between these two. 

The ants live in cities and towns, and villages and 


96 ANTS AS TEACHERS 


colonies, under the ground. The men who study 
ants carry them and their houses into a dark room, 
and look at them by red light, to which the ants are 
blind. They do most of their work under ground 
in the dark, and so when they are studied by red 
light they think they are in total darkness and keep 
right on with their work. 

They have queens, or mothers, who lay all the 
eggs; and they have drones, gentlemen, workmen, 
soldiers, babies, and slaves. How interesting it 
would be to tell you about all these different classes 
of ants. 

I believe that all of you would like to know more 
about the baby ants. When the eggs are hatched 
they are not ants, but grubs, or larvae. They are 
little white babies, without any legs, that have to be 
carried about by the nurses. Sometimes they are 
carried out into the sun, and then carried back into 
the nest at night. These nurses also feed the babies 
on honey and other food which they gather. When 
these babies are large enough they wrap themselves 
in tiny cocoons, as the caterpillars do, and go to 
sleep. They sleep for many days, and when they 
wake up they are changed into ants. They cannot 
get out of these cocoon cradles without help, so the 
nurses have to help them out and to straighten out 
their little legs, so they can walk. 

When you lift a stone near an ants’ nest, you 
may find under it all four forms of the life of the 
ants—eggs, grubs, cocoons and ants. As soon as 
you lift the stone the ants will run and carry off the 
eggs, the larvae, and the cocoons to a place of safety. 


ANTS AS TEACHERS 97 


The ants also have cows, who give them their 
milk. These cows are little plant lice, or aphids, 
of whose honey-dew they are very fond. An ant 
will walk up to an aphid and stroke its back with 
its feelers, or antennae, and at once the pleased little 
insect gives forth a drop of sweet fluid, which the 
ant gladly drinks up or carries away for the babies. 
The ants take very good care of their cows, and 
carry them to new pastures when the old ones dry 
up. They also carry the aphid-eggs into their nests 
and keep them during the winter, and then carry the 
young plant lice out and put them on plants in 
the spring. If these aphids are their cows, then the 
young ones must be their calves. 


Another wonderful thing about ants is that they 
smell with their feelers, hear with their legs, and see 
with their eyes some colors which we are not able 
to see. As I said before, they are blind to red, but 
they make up for this by seeing some colors that we 
have no names for. 

It has been found out by long study that the 
feelers, or antennae, are the ant’s nose. It feels 
with them, and it also smells. These feelers have 
ten joints, and each of these joints helps the ant to 
smell or find out a special thing. 

Is it any wonder that the Bible wants us to go 
to the ant to learn some good lessons? 


XXII. 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 


“But Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and 
forbid them not, to come unto me; for to such be- 
longeth the kingdom of heaven.’—Matrt. 19:14. 


DO not know any better subject for a Chil- 
] dren’s Day sermon than “Jesus and the Chil- 
dren.” And the most beautiful text for this 
kind of a sermon is the one I have selected for today. 

There are five things which Jesus did for the lit- 
tle children of His day, as shown in the short story 
given by Matthew, Mark and Luke, and He does 
as much, and more, for the children of our day. 

He stood up for them when the disciples wanted 
to keep them from Him. Mark says, “And they 
were bringing unto him little children, that he should 
touch them: and the disciples rebuked them. But 
when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indigna- 
tion, and said unto them, Suffer the little children 
to come unto me; forbid them not: for to such be- 
longeth the kingdom of God.” 

Jesus does not want the little children to be kept 
away from Him. He is the Friend of little chil- 
dren. The Reformed Church has always believed 
in bringing the children to Jesus as early as pos- 
sible. For this reason we dedicate them to Him 
in holy baptism in their infancy. We want our chil- 


98 


JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 99 


dren to be in the fold. We want them to be bap- 
tized members of the Church. 

Once there was a boy who had been taught the 
lesson of “the ninety and nine,’ and he told his 
father that he wanted to be in the fold, he wanted 
to become a Christian. “Oh, you are too young,” 
was his father’s only answer. ‘Toward evening a 
storm came up, and the father sent the boy out to 
put the sheep into the fold. “Did you get them all 
in safely?” the father asked when he came back. 
“T put all the old sheep in,’ answered the boy. “You 
don’t mean that you left the lambs out, do you?” 
asked the father anxiously. “Why, of course, fa- 
ther,’ said the boy; “I thought they were too 
young.” “You are right,’ then said the father to 
the boy. “You can only be safe from the storms of 
temptation by being in the fold of the Good Shep- 
herd, and you cannot enter too young.” 

Next, Jesus took the little children in His arms. 
This shows how much He loved the children, and 
it also shows how much they loved Him. Jesus was 
the first great teacher who loved children for their 
own sake, and it is only in Christian lands and 
where His Gospel is preached and practiced that 
children are cared for as they ought to be. 

A little girl who was very sick had the story of 
Jesus blessing the children read to her by her sister. 
The words of our text, “Suffer the little children, 
and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such 
belongeth the kingdom of heaven,” seemed to im- 
press her very much, and when her sister closed the 
Bible, the sick girl said to her, “How kind! I shall 


100 JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 


soon go to Jesus. He will take me up in His arms, 
and bless me, too!” 

The beautiful promise in Isaiah says, “He will 
gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in 
his bosom.” 

Jesus also laid His hands upon the children who 
were brought to Him. The laying on of hands was 
practiced by parents upon their children long be- 
fore Jesus came into the world. So Joseph brought 
his sons to Jacob, that he might lay his hands upon 
them and bless them. His blessing would be sure 
to make rich in one way or another. 

But what a blessing it was to have the hands of 
Jesus placed upon the heads of the children! How 
interesting it would be if we could know what be- 
came of those children. 

We still like to sing the beautiful hymn, written 
by Jemima Luke, eighty-three years ago: 

“T think when I read that sweet story of old, 

When Jesus was here among men, 


How He called little children as lambs to His fold, 
I should like to have been with them then. 


“I wish that His hands had been placed on my head, 
That His arm had been thrown around me, 

And that I might have seen His kind look when He said, 
‘Let the little ones come unto Me.’” 


But it is more wonderful to live now and to be 
able to sing: 
“Yet still to His footstool in prayer I may go, 
And ask for a share in His love; 


And if I thus earnestly seek Him below, 
I shall see Him and hear Him above.” 


Then Jesus blessed the children, which was a 
priestly act, and they were blest indeed! Too few 


JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 101 


parents bring their children to Jesus to be blest 
of Him. In Belgium, boys will run up to the 
priests and other religious men and ask them to 
sign them with the sign of the cross. Sir Thomas 
More, a great Englishman, publicly asked his aged 
father to give him his blessing. But best of all it 
is to teach our children to go to Jesus to receive 
the greatest blessings of life. 


And Jesus used the children as an example and 
as the text for a sermon: “Whosoever shall not 
receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall 
in no wise enter therein.” There are many traits of 
children which men and women must cultivate if 
they want to get to heaven. Childish things we must 
put away, as St. Paul says, and must outgrow; but 
childlike qualities of faith, hope, love, trust, inno- 
cence, purity, sympathy, truthfulness and sincerity 
we must keep and strengthen that they may grow 
beautiful with age. 


_ XXIII. 
THECST ORY Ope @) UR MEAs 


“In the name of our God we will set up our ban- 
ner.’—PsaLM 20:5. 


()- June the fourteenth we will celebrate the 


one hundred and forty-seventh anniversary 

of the birth of our flag, and it is fitting 
that we should say a few words about its history 
and meaning. 

The flag of a nation stands for the nation itself 
—for its history, its government, its principles, its 
people; and whoever dishonors the flag dishonors 
all of these. 

If ever a country set up its banner in the name 
of God, it was our country. From the very begin- 
ning, the men who founded our nation were men 
who honored God, and God honored them. And in 
our wonderful history of almost a hundred and 
fifty years our flag has never been made to stoop 
to any other flag. And today there is no flag more 
highly honored in all the world than the Stars and 
Stripes. 

It was on Saturday, the fourteenth day of June, 
1777, that the Continental Congress adopted a reso- 
lution that “the flag of the thirteen United States 
be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that 
the union be thirteen stars, white, in a blue field, 
representing a new constellation.” | 


102 


THE STORY OF OUR FLAG 103 


It is said that after this resolution was passed a 
committee, consisting of George Washington, Robert 
Morris, and George Ross, called upon Mrs. Betsy 
Ross, at 239 Arch Street, in Philadelphia, and asked 
her to make the flag. Betsy Ross was the daughter 
of Samuel Griscom, who helped in the erection of 
Independence Hall, and was the widow of John 
Ross, who died in 1776, after they had been married 
only three years. 

It is said that at first the stars on the flag were 
to be six-pointed, like the British stars, but that 
Betsy Ross suggested that five-pointed stars be used, 
which was adopted by the committee. 

Mrs. Ross made all the government flags as long 
as she lived, and her daughter, Mrs. Clarissa Wil- 
son, continued the business until 1857. The home 
of Mrs. Ross on Arch Street is called “The Amer- 
ican Flag Home,’ and is in charge of the Betsy 
Ross Memorial Association, which was formed in 
1898. 


The first flag that was made had seven red stripes, 
six white stripes, and thirteen white stars arranged 
in a circle in a field of blue. This flag was in use 
for eighteen years, and in 1795, the number of 
stripes was increased to fifteen, eight red and seven 
white, and the number of stars was also increased 
to fifteen, arranged not in a circle, but a square of 
four rows, with four stars in three of the rows and 
three stars in the fourth row. It was intended to 
add a star and stripe for every new State admitted 
into the Union. 


104 THE STORY OF OUR FLAG 


This flag remained unchanged for twenty-three 
years, when Congress, after a long debate, adopted 
the flag which we now have, the bill being signed by 
President James Monroe on April 4, 1818, and 
becoming a law from that date. 

The new flag had thirteen stripes, alternate red 
and white, representing the thirteen origina! States, 
and one star for every State in the Union. In 1818, 
there were twenty stars, and now there are forty- 
eight. In this way the memory of the beginning of 
our country is preserved and room is also given to 
show the progress which our country has made. This 
surely is the best arrangement that could have been 
adopted. 

Henry Ward Beecher once said of our flag these 
beautiful words: “Not another flag on the globe 
has such an errand, or went forth upon the sea, 
carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope 
for the captive and such glorious tidings. The stars 
upon it were to the pining nations like the morning 
stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams of 
morning light.” 

The colors of our flag have a meaning. The red 
stands for love, the white for purity, and the blue 
for fidelity. Every time you look at the flag the 
red stripes say to you: “Be brave; love your God 
and your country.” The white stripes and white 
stars say to you: “Be pure and clean in life and in 
character.” The blue field, in which the stars shine, 
says to you: “Be true and honest.” With such 
qualities in the hearts and lives of our boys and 


THE STORY OF OUR FLAG 105 


girls, and our men and women, our country will be 
safe. 

Many stories and poems have been written about 
our flag. I have two books lying on my desk which 
are full of them, and I wish I had room to tell 
some of the stories. I must be satisfied to close 
with a verse from Henry van Dyke’s poem called, 
“Who Follow the Flag’: 


“O bright flag, O brave flag, O flag to lead the free! 
The hand of God thy colors blent, 
And heaven to earth thy glory lent, 
To shield the weak, and guide the strong, 
To make an end of human wrong, 
And draw a countless human host to follow after thee.” 


MTV 
WHY I LOVE CHILDREN 


“To love their children’—Titus 2:4 


[ ) cost MY twenty-seven years in the 


Christian ministry, among the many things 

for which I am thankful to God is the fact 
that I have been able to work with and for the 
children. 

I enjoy working among men and women and 
young people, but I also enjoy my work among 
the children. I have always been able to draw chil- 
dren to myself. I began to teach children when I 
was a young man, and for more than thirty-five 
years I have labored among children in the Sun- 
day school, the public school, and the Church. I 
started my Junior Congregation work almost twelve 
years ago, and it has been one of the greatest pleas- 
ures of my ministry. 

In the chapter from which our text is taken, St. 
Paul tells Titus what to preach to the different 
classes of people. He tells him to speak to the 
aged women so that they may train the young women 
to love their husbands, to love their children, and 
a number of other things that they are to do. 

Does it not seem strange to have to tell mothers 
to love their children? Would it not seem strange 
to have to tell a minister to love children? Any 
man who does not love children ought not to be a 


106 


WHY I LOVE CHILDREN 107 


minister. In this sermon I want to give you a few 
reasons why I love children. 

I love them because Christ loves them. He was 
always fond of children. He took them in His arms 
and blessed them. His Spirit in the hearts of men 
and women has brought many blessings to the chil- 
dren of the world. Every one with a Christlike 
spirit will love the children and will try to help them. 

There are even some mothers in the world who 
do not love their children as they should, and no 
doubt St. Paul thought there might be some such 
in Crete, where he had left Titus to preach and to 
finish the work that was left undone. 

A family of six, a working man, his wife, and 
four children, all poor and miserable through drink, 
lived in a London slum. The drunken wife one 
evening, wandering about in her misery, saw a 
sparrow pick up a crumb and carry it to her young 
in her nest. The poor woman turned pale, trem- 
bled for a moment, and burst into tears. The day 
of change had come to her. “Oh!” she cried, “that 
sparrow feeds her young birds, and I neglect my 
young children. And what for? Drink. Nothing 
but drink!’ She wrung her hands and wept and 
then went home to pray. God heard her prayer 
and sent His message of forgiveness to her soul. A 
new light shone in her face, and her husband and 
children wondered at the great change that had 
taken place. She never drank again, but gave her 
love and her time to her family. Her husband also 
soon became a Christian, and a happy home, with 
comfort, peace, and plenty soon followed. That is 


108 WHY I LOVE CHILDREN 


the kind of love Christ wants to put into every one’s 
heart. 

A little boy, after reading “Pilgrim’s Progress,” 
asked his mother which of the characters she liked 
best. She replied, “Christian, of course; he is the 
hero of the story.” But the little fellow said: 
“Mother, I like Christiana best, because when Chris- 
tian set out on his pilgrimage, he went alone; but, 
when Christiana started, she took the children with 
her.” 


I love children because of what they are. The 
best and sweetest gift that God ever gave to man 
was a little Child, who was born in Bethlehem of 
Judaea more than nineteen hundred years ago. Ev- 
ery child that is born into the world comes fresh 
and pure from the hands of God, and if properly 
received and cherished and loved will be a great 
blessing in the home. 

There is something about children that makes us 
love them. They are so innocent, trustful, cheer- 
ful and hopeful, that we cannot help but love them. 
And this made Jesus say: “Except ye turn, and 
become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter 
into the kingdom of heaven.” Grown-up persons 
must have the childlike spirit to be pleasing to Christ 
and to enter His kingdom. 

I love children because of what they may become. 
President Garfield once said that whenever he 
met a little child he felt like lifting his hat because 
no one knew what possibilities were buttoned up 
in that little body. 

The important work of the world forty and fifty 


WHY I LOVE CHILDREN 109 


years from now will be in the hands of the boys 
and girls of today, and if we love them and make 
them the kind of children they ought to be, the 
future will be safe in their hands. 

There are many other reasons why I love chil- 
dren, but I have room to mention only one more. 
I love them because they help to keep me young. 
To live with children, to work for children, to love 
children, and to help children, gives one a childlike 
spirit and helps to keep one young. Our bodies will 
grow old with the years, but our spirits need never 
grow old if we do the things that help to keep them 
young. A Spaniard once came to this country to 
find the Fountain of Perpetual Youth. He had been 
told that if he would bathe in that fountain he would 
be forever young. He tried different fountains, but 
his youth did not come back. Those who live with 
and work for and love children are not far from the 
Fountain of Perpetual Youth. That is why I love 
children. 


XXV. 
OUR NATION’S BIRTHDAY 


“Blessed is the nation whose God ts Jehovah.’— 
PsaALM 33:12. 


N July the Fourth, we will celebrate the one 
() hundred and forty-eighth birthday of our 
nation. In two years we expect to have a 
great celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of our existence as a nation, and prep- 
arations are now in progress to celebrate the occa- 
sion in a most fitting way. I hope all of the Juniors 
who read this sermon will be able to take some part 
in this celebration. 

When we think of the small beginning our coun- 
try had, and how it has grown and prospered dur- 
ing the years of our history, we cannot but believe 
that God has been with us in a wonderful way, and 
that our nation has been truly blessed. 

That which took place on the Fourth of July, 
1776, was the result of a process which had been 
going on for some time. It was on that day that the 
Declaration of Independence was signed in Inde- 
pendence Hall, Philadelphia, and this fact gives our 
nation’s birthday the name of Independence Day. 
But the resolution of independence itself was passed 
on the second of July. 

Mr. John Adams, one of the early patriots, said 
about the Fourth of July: “It ought to be com- 


110 


OUR NATION’S BIRTHDAY 1G i 


memorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts 
of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be cele- 
brated with pomp and parade, with shows, games, 
sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from 
one end of this continent to the other, from this time 
forward forevermore.” 

This seemed to be a wonderful prophecy, and for 
more than a hundred years our nation’s birthday 
was celebrated in this way. 

Little, however, did Mr. Adams know or think 
what “guns” and “bonfires” would lead to. If all 
the deaths and injuries that have resulted from this 
form of celebration were known, they would repre- 
sent a large part of those lost and injured during 
the Revolution. 

A different spirit has developed among the Amer- 
ican people in recent years. Instead of meaning- 
less noise and the discharge of dangerous fireworks, 
there is coming into favor a more worthy observ- 
ance of the day, and I hope there will be a more 
general return to the first part of Mr. Adams’ 
prophecy, namely, “solemn acts of devotion to God 
Almighty.” 

The baser elements of our nature have kept up 
the dangerous and deadly practices of the past. The 
greed for gain and the willingness to profit at the 
expense of injury to innocent children have too long 
continued the manufacture and sale of dangerous 
fireworks. This practice has also kept alive the mil- 
itary spirit, from which we must get away if we 
ever want to have worldwide peace. 

It is unfortunate that our public schools are not 


112 OUR NATION’S BIRTHDAY 


in session at the time of the celebration of our na- 
tion’s birthday. Many of the holidays and festival 
days are observed in our public schools, and the chil- 
dren are taught many valuable lessons which will 
be helpful to them in after life. Our national holi- 
day should be used for impressing upon the minds 
of the young the history of their national liberty, 
and its cause. 


Our Sunday schools and Churches must do this 
work, as far as they possibly can, so that lessons 
of real patriotism may be taught, and that the true 
meaning of the day may be impressed upon young 
and old. : 

The cry: “A Safe and Sane Fourth” has been 
heard for a number of years and is growing more 
popular all over the country. One of the first cities 
to celebrate our nation’s birthday in a safe and sane 
manner was the city of Washington, our National 
Capitol. In 1908, the number of persons treated at 
the hospitals of the city for injuries received on the 
Fourth of July were one hundred and four. In 
1909, when the first safe and sane Fourth of July 
was observed in Washington, there was not a single 
accident of this kind. In the same year in about a 
dozen cities of our country, where the day was cel- 
ebrated in the old way, there were twenty-seven 
deaths, one thousand four hundred and thirty-three 
persons injured, two hundred and thirty-six fires, 
and other troubles, all due to the use of fire-arms 
and fireworks. 

Instead of taking life on our nation’s birthday, we 
ought to save lives, if we can. Admiral Sampson 


OUR NATION’S BIRTHDAY 113 


told a story of something that took place on Sun- 
day, July 4, 1898, after the battle with the Span- 
ish squadron, which illustrates what I mean: 

As the Admiral’s ship sailed into the harbor there 
were signs of wreckage, death and disaster all 
around. Among the dead things and burning things 
that were floating on the water they saw a man 
swimming, a Spanish sailor. He was making a 
struggle for his life, but there was nothing near 
enough for him to cling to, the shore was a long 
way off, and it was noticed that each stroke he 
made was fainter than the last. Without help he 
would be lost. As some of the men were watching 
him to see how long he would hold out, an American 
sailor picked up the little pulpit on the deck, with 
the cross carved to the top of it, and pitched it over 
the side of the ship into the sea, as he cried: “Here, 
friend, cling to that. Cling to the cross, and it'll take 
you safe to shore!’ The Spaniard could not under- 
stand the words, but he understood the act, and the 
last they saw of him he was clinging to the pulpit 
with its cross, moving toward the shore. 

Let us do all we can, boys and girls, to make 
the future celebration of our nation’s birthday safe 
and sane. 


XXVI. 
CHRIST Sab iE 
“Ye are an epistle of Christ.’—II Cor. 3:3. 


S far as we know, Jesus did not write any let- 
A ters. In the eighth chapter of St. John we 

read: “But Jesus stooped down, and with 
his finger wrote on the ground.” What He wrote 
there is not known. Some think He wrote a verse 
of Scripture, while others think He made only marks 
in the sand. 

But St. Paul says to every one of us, “Ye are an 
epistle of Christ,” which means “You are Christ’s 
letter.” Every Christian man and woman, every 
Christian boy and girl is a letter of Christ, “written 
not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God; 
not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts 
of flesh.” 

We are living epistles, known and read of all men. 
Christ did not write any books, but every Christian 
ought to be a living Bible. Letter-writing is a won- 
derful thing. It has become so common among us 
that we do not stop to think how wonderful it is. A 
little over three hundred years ago there was no 
postoffice in England, because there were only a 
few people who could write. But in our day, you 
can see wagon-loads of letters going out of the 
postoffice in any one of our large cities. 

In our country almost every boy and girl of school 


114 


CHRIST’S LETTER 115 


age can read and write. But in some of the coun- 
tries where the missionaries go to teach and preach 
there are many persons who cannot read or write. 

When the missionary John Williams went to the 
South Sea Islands, those to whom he went knew 
nothing about writing. The people learned to love 
him and to love God, and thousands of them brought 
their idols and laid them at his feet. So many per- 
sons came to hear him preach that their chapel was 
too small to hold them. They started to build a new 
Church, and when it was finished there was room 
in it for three thousand people. 

While they were building this Church, Mr. Wil- 
liams needed one of the tools which he had left 
at his home; and picking up a chip he wrote a note 
on it to Mrs. Williams, asking her to send the tool 
back with the man who brought the message. 

At first the black man did not want to go, saying 
that Mrs. Williams would scold him if he carried a 
chip to her. But Mr. Williams said, “This chip will 
say all that I wish, and she will understand.” 

When Mrs. Williams gave him the tool, he asked, 
“How do you know this is what Mr. Williams 
wants?’ She said, “Did you not give me a chip 
just now?” “Yes,” he answered, “but I did not 
hear it say anything.” “Well,” she said, “if you 
did not, I did.” 

The poor fellow went away with the tool, and 
holding the chip high above his head, and running 
as fast as he could through the village, he shouted 
as he ran, “See the wisdom of these English people. 


116 CHRIST’S LETTER 


They can make chips talk! They can make chips 
talk!” 

It is just as wonderful to have Christ write the 
secrets of His heart on your hearts and mine. We 
are His letters, known and read by all men. 

Many years ago the city of Paris was surrounded 
by the German army so that the people in the city 
could not get out, and no one could come in to see 
them. The people in the city suffered a great deal 
for want of food, but they also suffered for want 
of news of their friends and loved ones in other 
parts of the world. At last these friends wrote 
letters which were printed on the first page of a 
London newspaper, and a photographer made a copy 
of that page so small that it was only the size of a 
postage stamp. Then those tiny pages were tied 
under the wings of doves and carried by them over 
the heads of the German army into Paris. There 
the photographers made those tiny pages large again, 
and in this way the people in Paris got letters from 
the dear ones far away. 

Christ knows the hearts of children are too small 
to receive His words, so He makes His letter small, 
so small that it can all be printed on a child’s heart. 
And as the boys and girls grow up their hearts grow 
larger and larger, and the letters grow with them, 
so that when they are men and women they find 
that the loving Jesus has written nearly all the Bi- 
ble on their hearts. 

In writing His letter on the hearts of the people, 
Christ uses pen, ink, and paper. But the pen He 
uses is the minister of the Gospel; the ink is the 


CHRIST’S LETTER 117 


Holy Spirit, for St. Paul says: “written not with 
ink, but with the Spirit of the living God;’ and the 
paper is the heart,—“Not in tables of stone, but in 
tables that are hearts of flesh.” 

Wherever you and I go, men know us and read 
us as Christ’s letters. It is very important, there- 
fore, that we should be the right kind of boys and 
girls, and the right kind of men and women. 

A beautiful story comes to us from India. There 
was a Christian missionary there who found that he 
could not learn the language of the people among 
whom he labored. After some years he asked the 
Board to let him give up the work because he could 
not learn the language. But a dozen missionaries 
wrote to the Board asking them not to grant his re- 
quest, saying that his goodness gave him a wider 
influence among the heathen than any other mis- 
sionary at the station. When a convert was asked, 
“What is it to be a Christian?” he replied, “It is to 
be like that man,’ naming this good missionary. 
The Board kept him in India, because he was Christ’s 
letter to the people of India, known and read of all 
men. That is the kind of Christ’s letters you and I 
want to be! 


CNEL, 
THE CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS 


“T will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains.”— 
Psautm 121:1. 


Y Y ACATION time is here again. Nature calls 


with many voices to old and young to come 
and spend some time with her and to find 
rest, recreation and enjoyment. 

These calls come from the mountains, the woods, 
the fields, the lakes, the rivers, and the seas. Dur- 
ing these summer days my junior sermons will be 
nature sermons, in answer to these calls. We must 
all decide to which of these calls we want to re- 
spond. Sometimes it is possible to combine pleas- 
ure and profit by visiting summer schools or con- 
ferences which are generally held in the mountains, 
in the woods, on the college campus, by the lake, or 
by the sea. 

One of the finest things about these meetings is 
that children are not forgotten, but some special 
provision is made for their instruction and amuse- 
ment. It is beginning to be understood that chil- 
dren are too important to be neglected. 

The call of the mountains is the one that comes 
loudest to some people. They do not care much for 
the seashore, but are delighted with the mountains. 
Our first nature sermon will, therefore, be about the 
mountains, not because the preacher likes them the 


118 


CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS 119 


best, for he likes all nature, but because we must 
begin somewhere, and the mountains stand out so 
prominently that they arrest our attention at once. 

Do you know that this world would be far less 
beautiful and much poorer if it were not for the 
mountains? God made the mountains to beautify 
and enrich the world. 

The call of the mountains is threefold. They call 
us to look up. The Greek word for man means 
“the being with the uplifted face.” Man was made 
to look up, and wherever the mountains are they 
call us to look up. 

When I was a boy I often looked up at the moun- 
tains, which were not many miles away, and some 
of my first boyhood thoughts were about the great 
world that lay beyond those mountains, and some 
of my dreams and plans for the future were influ- 
enced by those mountains. 

As a young man I traveled across the State of 
Pennsylvania, and wondered at the grandeur of the 
mountain scenery in our own beloved State. Since 
then I have traveled in many States of our own 
country and through eight different foreign coun- 
tries, and nowhere have I seen as beautiful moun- 
tain scenery, except, perhaps, in Switzerland, and 
even that did not arouse in me the wonder and ad- 
miration which the mountains of my own State had 
caused earlier in life. 

Two of the finest mountain views I ever had 
were those of the Jungfrau and Mont Blanc in 
Switzerland. Of the latter mountain Lord Byron 
wrote: 


120 CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS 


“Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains; 
They crowned him long ago, 

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of light, 
With a diadem of snow.” 


Wherever the mountains may be, at home or 
abroad, they call us to look up, and they draw our 
thoughts nearer to God. 

The mountains also call us to climb up. They 
challenge as well as call. They make us feel as 
though we wanted to climb up to the top. 

As mountains were round about Jerusalem, which 
made David think of the protecting care of Jehovah, 
so mountains are round about the city of Reading, 
where I live. Some years ago another minister and 
I climbed up to the top of one of these mountains 
where we had a grand view of our beautiful city. 

I am reading a book written almost fifty years 
ago by a great English scientist, in which he speaks 
about climbing some of the great mountains of Eu- 
rope. He shows how dangerous it was at that time 
to climb some of these mountains, but speaks of the 
wonderful experiences and views which made all the 
danger and trouble worth while. 

About eleven years ago, on the twenty-third of 
July, 1913, another minister and I went up to the 
side of the great Jungfrau mountain in Switzerland, 
where we had a good view of the glaciers, snow- 
balled each other, picked some Alpine flowers and 
saw some of the most beautiful Swiss scenery. 

Jesus loved the mountains. He often went up in- 
to the mountains to pray, to preach, to rest, and to 
talk with His Father. 


CALL OF THE MOUNTAINS 121 


The mountains call us to climb up to better and 
higher things in life. There is always room at the 
top, and the boys and girls who climb the hills of 
knowledge and the hills of difficulty and the hills 
of goodness will make their mark in life. Many a 
poor boy and girl has climbed up the steep moun- 
tain of success and is now enrolled in the hall of 
fame. 

But the mountains also call us to live up, and this 
is the best challenge of all. 

St. Paul tells us to “seek the things that are 
above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of 
God.” And he tells us how to do this: “Set your 
mind on the things that are above, not on the things 
that are upon the earth.” 

It is said that a little boy once stood up in a 
Quakers’ meeting and said, “I want to be gooder and 
gooder, and better and better, till there’s no bad 
left in me.’ J am sure that if he acted on that 
purpose both his grammar and his character became 
better. 

You must begin early in life, boys and girls, to 
lift up your eyes unto the mountains, to respond 
to their call as they challenge you to higher and 
better things, and to live up to the highest stand- 
ards of life, then you will achieve success and will 
make the most and the best of yourselves. 


OPO ATRT 
INTO; THE “WOODS 
“And sleep in the woods.”—Ezex. 34:25. 


HIS is the only place in the Bible where the 
Gi word “woods” is found; although the word 

“wood,” meaning woods or forests, is found 
more than twenty times. The woods call us as 
well as the mountains, and it is pleasant to spend 
some time among the trees. I have had the pleasure 
of spending some time among the trees almost every 
summer of my life, so far as I can remember. In 
attending summer schools and conferences during 
the past twenty-five years, I am happy to say that 
most of them were held among the trees. On the 
campus at Franklin and Marshall College, Lan- 
caster; at Ursinus College, Collegeville; at Har- 
vard University, Cambridge; at Auburn Seminary, 
New York; at Mount Gretna; at Northfield, Mass., 
and other places, there are beautiful trees which help 
to make those places attractive. 

The trees, like the mountains, call us to them- 
selves, that we may enjoy and profit by their 
shade. They, too, add to the health and beauty 
of the world. They have much to do with the cli- 
mate, the weather, and other things that help to 
control our health and happiness. 

When it is clear, when the sun shines, the trees 
are said to breathe out oxygen and to breathe in 


122 


INTO THE WOODS 123 


carbonic acid gas, and in this way they help to 
purify the air and to make it better for us. The air 
we need must have oxygen in it, and the air we 
breathe out has carbonic acid gas init. In this way 
God balances things in His world. 

Many persons are building cottages and bunga- 
lows in the woods, where they go to live during the 
summer months. Others put up tents in the woods, 
and spend some time in camping there. 

In the verse from which our text is taken, God 
makes a promise to His people. Indeed the whole 
chapter is very beautiful. He speaks of the way 
in which His sheep were treated. The shepherds 
did not take care of them. ‘They were scattered 
abroad. God discharged the shepherds, and He said: 
“T myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I 
will cause them to lie down.” And in one verse He 
says: “And I will make with them a covenant of 
peace, and will cause evil beasts to cease out of the 
land; and they shall dwell securely in the wilder- 
ness, and sleep in the woods.” 

Jesus also loved the trees, and spent a great deal 
of time among them. The Mount of Olives, where 
He often went, was so called because of the olive 
trees that covered a great part of it. There were 
also olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane, where 
He spent some of His last sad hours on earth. One 
of the most beautiful poems that has been written 
about our Lord has to do with the woods. It was 
written by Sidney Lanier, an American poet, who 
was born in Macon, Greorgia, February 3, 1842. 
These are the words: 


124 INTO THE WOODS 


“Into the woods my Master went, 

Clean forspent, forspent. 

Into the woods my Master came, 

Forspent with love and shame. 

But the olives they were not blind to Him; 
The little gray leaves were kind to Him; 
The thorn tree had a mind to Him, 

When into the woods He came. 


“Out of the woods my Master went, 

And He was well content, 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame. 

When death and shame would woo Him last, 
From under the trees they drew Him last; 
*Twas on a tree they slew Him—last, 
When out of the woods He came.” 


The olive trees, among which our Lord spent so 
much of His time, were useful then and are useful 
now. The two products of the trees which we know 
best are the fruit, which we eat green as “olives,” 
and the oil, which is very soothing and healing. The 
wood is also useful and we read that the doors and 
posts of Solomon’s temple were made of olive wood. 


In our day, boys and girls hear a great deal about 
conserving the forests, which means saving the trees 
of our woods from destruction by fire or in other 
unnecessary ways. Our people have been very care- 
less with regard to the forests, and now we are be- 
ginning to feel it. Our Boy Scouts are trained to 
put out forest fires, and are taught to take care of 
trees. 

One of Aesop’s fables is about “The Trees and 
the Axe,” and it is translated as follows: “‘A man 
came into the forest, and made a petition to the 
Trees to provide him a handle for his axe. The 


INTO THE WOODS 125 


Trees consented to his request, and gave him a 
young ash tree. No sooner had the man fitted from 
it a new handle to his axe than he began to use it, 
and quickly felled with his strokes the noblest giants 
of the forest. An old Oak, lamenting when too late 
the destruction of his companions, said to a neigh- 
boring Cedar: ‘The first step has lost us all. If we 
had not given up the rights of the Ash, we might 
yet have retained our own privileges, and have stood 
for ages.’ ”’ 

In some countries the law requires the planting 
of another tree whenever one is cut down, so that 
the forests may not be entirely destroyed. 

I do not have time in this sermon to speak of the 
life in the woods—the animals, birds, snakes and in- 
sects that are found in the woods. There is a great 
deal to learn in our woods and no one can spend 
any length of time in the woods without being bet- 
ter and wiser for it. “The groves were God’s first 
temples,” and if we answer the call of the woods 
in the right spirit we shall find ourselves nearer to 


God. 


XXIX. 
THE WONDERFUL RIVER 


“There is a river, the streams whereof make glad 
the city of God.’—PsaLm 46:4. 


Nie all of the great cities of the world 


have grown up near the rivers of the world. 

And many of these rivers help to make the 
cities glad, as the river spoken of in our text makes 
glad the city of God. 

When I was a boy in school we sang some of our 
geography lessons. We took up every state of our 
country and named the capital and the river on 
which it is located. It was very interesting to hear 
the whole class, and sometimes the whole school, 
sing out the song of the states: ‘Maine, Augusta, 
on the Kennebec River; New Hampshire, Concord, 
on the Merrimac River; Vermont, Montpelier, on 
the Winooski River; Massachusetts, Boston, on the 
Charles River; Rhode Island, Providence, on the 
Providence River; Connecticut, Hartford, on the 
Connecticut River; New York, Albany, on the Hud- 
son River; Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, on the Sus- 
quehanna River ;’” and so on. 

They do not teach geography in this way now-a- 
days, because they may not think it very necessary 
for the pupils to know on what rivers the capitals are 
situated. But the reason I mention this is to point 
out the fact that about every capital city of our 


126 


THE WONDERFUL RIVER 127 


country is on a river, and the river helps to make 
the city glad. 

Without its rivers, Philadelphia would not be the 
great and important city it has become. The city 
of London is made much more attractive by the 
Thames River, with its beautiful embankments 
where many monuments have been erected, and its 
fine bridges which are daily crossed by an immense 
amount of traffic. The Seine River adds much to 
the beauty of Paris, and its bridges are among the 
finest in the world. Florence, on the Arno River, 
is said to be one of the most beautiful cities of the 
world, and the river does much to make the city 
glad and beautiful. And so I might go on, filling 
page after page, telling about the cities of the world 
and the rivers that help to make them glad. 

Of all the rivers that I have seen, the Hudson 
River in our country and the Rhine River in Ger- 
many are among the most beautiful. I spent the 
greater part of a day sailing up the Rhine River on 
one of the beautiful steamboats which are used 
there, and I never had so much of interest and 
beauty crowded into one day as I saw there. If 
there is a more beautiful and interesting river than 
the Rhine anywhere in the world, I do not know 
where it is. The beautiful mountain scenery on 
both sides of the river, the slopes with their vine- 
yards and gardens and truck patches, the rugged 
rocks and the towering peaks, the beautiful cities 
and towns and villages, and the grand castles both 
ancient and modern, together with the legends and 
stories connected with them, fill every minute of 


128 THE WONDERFUL RIVER 


one’s time with interest and admiration and excla- 
mation. 

But of all the riyers in the world, there is one 
that is most unique. There are many rivers that are 
larger and more useful and more beautiful, but 
“there is none which has been more spoken of by 
mankind” than the Jordan River. It is nearly a 
hundred miles long, and where it empties into the 
Sea of Galilee it sinks as low as six hundred and 
eighty feet below the level of the ocean. 

But what makes this river so famous? The fact 
that Jesus spent so much of his ministry in that 
section. He was baptized by John in the River 
Jordan. He was often on the Sea of Galilee, into 
which the Jordan pours its waters. Thousands of 
Christians from all parts of the world visit the Holy 
Land every year, and go to see the places made sac- 
red by the presence of our Lord when on earth, and 
among these are the Jordan River and the Sea of 
Galilee. 

Sir George Adam Smith, who wrote one of the 
best books ever written about the Holy Land, says 
at the end of one of his chapters: “And so what was 
_ never a great Jewish river has become a very great 
Christian one.” 

I read a story some time ago of a wonderful river, 
about which I want to tell you. 

In a certain city, the palace of the king and the 
houses of his servants were warmed and served by 
a river which flowed underground. The river did 
not freeze in the depth of winter, nor grow hot in 
the height of summer. It kept all the rooms of the 


THE WONDERFUL RIVER iy] 


palace warm at all times through pipes that were 
laid to them from the river. Every night the water 
flowed through fine pipes and washed the windows 
of the palace clean and bright. And the river made 
all the repairs that were necessary in the palace 
and in the city—marble columns, ivory furniture, 
soft cushions, musical instruments, anything and 
everything. The river kept its own walls and pipes 
in good order. All this the river did, and much 
more which I do not have time to tell you about. 

Was not this a wonderful river? You may be 
surprised when I tell you that this is not a fairy 
story, but a true story. And this wonderful river is 
much nearer to you than you think. In fact, it is 
within you. 

The city is your body, the palace is your brain, the 
king is your mind. The river is your blood, and it 
builds columns, which are your bones; and _ it 
stretches telegraph wires, which are your nerves; and 
it cleanses the palace windows, which are your eyes; 
and it mends and tunes the musical instruments, 
which are your vocal cords; and it repairs the ivory 
furniture, which are your teeth; and it renews and 
repairs everything day by day, so that you may 
be well and strong and happy. 

Your body should be a city of God, who built it 
for your soul, and made it wonderful and beautiful, 
and your blood is the river, “the streams whereof 
make glad the city of God.” 


», OO. 
BEHOLD THE BIRDS 
“Behold the birds of the heaven.”—Matt. 6:26. 


WO weeks ago, in speaking to you about the 

woods, I said that I did not have time to 

tell you about the creatures that live in the 
woods and among the trees. Today I want to tell 
you about one kind of those creatures, the birds. 

I just returned from a summer school that was 
held in a building among the trees. The first thing 
I heard every morning when I awoke was the 
birds singing in the trees. And there were a num- 
ber of these birds there, different kinds of them, 
as I could tell by the songs and the chatter and the 
chirping. 

The most beautiful of the birds I heard and saw 
there was the flicker, the golden-winged woodpeck- 
er, which is also called yellow-hammer, high-holder, 
pigeon wood-pecker, and yucca. JI remember these 
birds from my boyhood days, when I saw many of 
them. I have always been fond of birds, and have 
taken a great interest in them all my life. I think 
every boy and girl ought to learn to know the birds 
of the neighborhood in which they live. 

Jesus loved the birds. He was anxious that even 
they should not be overlooked. And if you will 
look into your Bibles you can find out what kind 
of birds Jesus talked about. As He noticed the 


130 


BEHOLD THE BIRDS 131 


poor and the needy, the sick and the crippled among 
the people, so He noticed the poor and neglected 
birds. 

In the verse from which our text is taken, He 
says: “Behold the birds of the heaven, that they 
sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; 
and your heavenly Father feedeth them.” St. Mat- 
thew does not name the birds, but if you will look 
up the same story in St. Luke’s gospel you will 
find that he reports Jesus as saying: “Consider the 
ravens, that they sow not, neither reap; which have 
no store-chamber nor barn; and God feedeth them: 
of how much more value are ye than the birds!” 

The raven was the only bird of its order which 
the law of Moses called unclean. It was a large, 
black bird like our crow, only larger. It is said 
that the ravens do not care for their young like 
other birds do. And they are great eaters: it takes 
a great deal to satisfy them. But Jesus said: “God 
feedeth them.” He watches over and cares for the 
birds, even the ravens. 

One of the birds most considerate of its young is 
the robin. Not long ago I was at a home near the 
ocean, and as I sat on the porch enjoying the ocean 
breeze I saw a robin fly into the porch and feed its 
young in their nest, which was in a honeysuckle bush 
near where I sat. Both the parent birds came regu- 
larly all day long bringing food to their hungry ba- 
bies in the nest. 

Jesus also spoke of the sparrow, another lowly 
bird. The ravens were looked upon as unclean, 
but the sparrows were used as food, and many of 


132 BEHOLD THE BIRDS 


them were caught and sold for this purpose. Jesus 
asked, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” 
(Matthew 10:29), and then adds: “And not one of 
them shall fall to the ground without your Father.” 
And in Luke 12:6 He says: “Are not five sparrows 
sold for two pence? and not one of them is for- 
gotten in the sight of God.” 

But the reason Jesus says all this about the birds 
is to teach us that our Heavenly Father, Who cares 
for the birds and all other creatures, will much more 
care for us, because we are His children. Jesus 
says: “Fear not: ye are of more value than many 
sparrows.” 

It is said that there are at least thirty-three dif- 
ferent kinds of sparrows in America, and then think 
of all the many other kinds of birds; and God 
cares for them all. 

The only other bird that Jesus mentions is the 
eagle, whom we call “the king of birds.” But Jesus 
uses the word in its lowest sense, and does not have 
reference to the birds we call eagles, but rather to 
vultures. He says: “Whersoever the carcass is, 
there will the eagles (margin, ‘vultures’) be gath- 
ered together.” 

It would be interesting if I could tell you about 
all the persons who have loved birds, but I have 
room for only one such reference. I believe that all 
good people, who have the spirit of Jesus, love the 
birds. 

There was a very good man, who lived in Italy 
more than seven hundred years ago, who was a 
great lover of birds. His name was St. Francis of 


BEHOLD THE BIRDS 133 


Assissi. St. Francis loved everything that God 
had made, and he was especially fond of birds. He 
cared for the young robins, he built nests for the 
turtle-doves, and the birds loved and trusted him so 
much that they came and sat on his hands and on 
his head. Many stories and legends are told about 
him. 

It is said that he once preached a sermon to the 
birds. He went into a field and saw a great many 
birds on the trees and on the ground. He told his 
friends that he was going to preach to his feathered 
brothers. As soon as he began to preach, all the 
little birds that were on the trees fluttered down and 
sat around him listening, like a junior congrega- 
tion. St. Francis told them that they should always 
be thankful to God and praise and love Him be- 
cause He had given them the power to fly, and food, 
and clothing, and shelter. Then, it is said, all the 
little birds began to open their beaks and to beat 
their wings and to bow their heads reverently to the 
earth. And then they sang a song of praise to 
show St. Francis that his words had pleased them 


greatly. — 


XXXI. 
MORE ABOUT BIRDS 


“TI have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” 
—I Kines 17:4. 


AST week I told you about birds, but I could 

A not finish my sermon for fear it would be 

too long. I had several good stories about 

birds left over, and so I am going to tell you more 
about birds. 

I have taken my text from the right chapter, for 
some one has called this “A! Children’s Chapter.” 
He says that he often read it when he was a boy, 
and was very fond of the story in which the ravens 
fed Elijah and the story of the jar of meal and the 
cruse of oil. 

In my last sermon I told you about the ravens, 
of whom Jesus says: “Consider the ravens, that they 
sow not, neither reap; which have no store-chamber 
nor barn; and God feedeth them.” Here Jesus tells 
us how God feeds the ravens, but in the chapter 
from which our text is taken we read how God 
used the ravens to feed His prophet, Elijah. 

Elijah was a great prophet who told the king and 
the people the will of God. He had to tell Ahab, 
the wicked king, that there would be a great drought 
in the land, when there would be no rain and no 
crops for three years and there would be much 


134 


MORE ABOUT BIRDS 135 


suffering among the people. All this came upon 
them because of their sins and their wickedness. 

After Elijah had delivered his message, God said 
to him: “Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, 
and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is be- 
fore the Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt 
drink of the brook; and I have commanded the 
ravens to feed thee there.” 

Elijah did as God told him to, “and the ravens 
brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and 
bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of 
the brook.” It is no wonder that Jesus said long 
afterward: “Of how much more value are ye than 
the birds!” | 

We are so used to having our food three times a 
day that we do not always stop to consider where it 
comes from or how we get it. God feeds us just as 
truly as He fed Elijah, and we ought never to sit 
down to a meal without giving Him thanks. Our 
food comes to us from all parts of the country 
and even from other countries across the seas. It is 
not brought to us by the ravens, but the ships bring 
it across the seas and the trains bring it across the 
land, so that we have food from all parts of the 
world on our tables. | 

I told you a legend of St. Francis of Assissi and 
the birds in my last sermon. Now I want to tell 
you another one about him. 

One day St. Francis and another monk came to a 
place called Alviano to preach, and stopped in the 
market-place. It was evening, and the swallows 
were flying about among the walls and turrets, cir- 


136 MORE ABOUT BIRDS 


cling around and around, and darting in and out of 
their nests under the eaves, making quite a noise. 
The two Friars sang their evening hymn of praise, 
and the people began to gather around them, know- 
ing that St. Francis would have a message for them. 
Everybody was quiet but the swallows. Lower and 
lower they circled over the market-place, and their 
cries became louder and louder so that they drowned 
every other sound. At last St. Francis looked up 
and spoke to them gently: ‘My dear sister swal- 
lows, it seems to me that the time has come when I 
should have a chance to speak; now you have said 
enough! Hear, therefore, God’s word and keep still 
and quiet while I preach!’ At once the birds were 
quiet, and they made no more noise so long as St. 
Francis preached. 

Another bird story comes to us from Italy. There 
was a great carnival in one of the cities. The peo- 
ple from far and near went into the city to enjoy 
the carnival. There was one poor boy who remained 
at home. He would rather play with his pet spar- 
row than go into the city. When everybody else was 
gone away, he took out the cage of his pet, opened 
the door, took the sparrow on the forefinger of his 
one hand and fed it with the other. They had a 
happy time together. The boy told his love to the 
bird, and the bird chirped its love back to him. They 
played a long time, but all at once the boy noticed 
that the sky was very black and he heard an awful 
sound. The cattle were running around in fear, the 
earth began to shake, the houses began to fall. It 
was an earthquake. | 


MORE ABOUT BIRDS 137 


The boy quickly put his sparrow into the cage, 
and hung the cage on its peg. Then his own house 
began to shake and was broken into pieces, and the 
walls and the roof fell down. The boy’s brother 
had come home, and threw his arms around his neck, 
and so they died together clasped in each other’s 
arms, and the ruins covered them. All that was 
seen of the boy was his hand, which reached up out 
of the ruins. In one of the shocks of earthquake 
which followed, the door of the sparrow’s cage was 
unlatched, and the bird flew out. And where do 
you think it went? To the hand of its dear young 
master on which it had perched not long before, on 
the hand that was stretched out of the ruins, it sat 
down. 


XXXIT. 
A WATERED GARDEN 


“And thou shalt be like a watered garden.” —Isa. 
spe yeg i 


URING the War a great many persons be- 
gan making gardens. The vacant lots of our 
cities, the commons which were usually full 

of weeds, were turned into beautiful gardens in 
which all kinds of vegetables grew. It was like 
Isaiah says in another verse, in the fifty-first chap- 
ter: And God “hath made her wilderness like 
Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah.” 

The war is over, but many of the gardens are kept 
up and this summer they are well watered, es- 
pecially in our city, for we have had much rain this 
summer. 

I do not know how many of my boys and girls 
have gardens of their own, but I think it is a good 
thing, wherever possible, for boys and girls to have 
gardens, or at least plots or beds, of their own, in 
which to grow vegetables or flowers. . 

It seems, as we read the Book of Isaiah, that 
when God spoke of the bad people He thought of a 
garden without water. In the thirtieth verse of the 
first chapter we read: “For ye shall be as an oak 
whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no 
water.” And when He spoke of good people He 
thought of a watered garden, as in our text: “And 


138 


A WATERED GARDEN 139 


thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a 
spring of water, whose waters fail not.” 

When God first made man He placed him into 
a garden as the most beautiful and the pleasantest 
place for him. And it was a watered garden, for in 
Genesis 2:10 we read: “And a river went out of 
Eden to water the garden.” 

Although God did all this for Adam and Eve, 
it was in this garden—the Garden of Eden—that 
they disobeyed God, and were driven out of the gar- 
den. 

Three other gardens are spoken of in the Bible: 

The Garden of Gethsemane, somewhere on the 
side of the Mount of Olives, was a place where 
Jesus often went with His disciples for quiet and 
rest. It was in this garden that He spent His last 
hours before He was betrayed and arrested and 
crucified. Here by His wonderful obedience He 
won the victory over temptation and became willing 
to drink the bitter cup. By His obedience He made 
good what the disobedience of Adam and Eve had 
spoiled. 

After Jesus died on the cross His body was 
buried in a garden which was not far away. St. 
John says it this way: “Now in the place where He 
was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden 
a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid. There 
they laid Jesus.” It was in this garden that He 
arose from the grave on Easter morning. We may 
therefore call it the Garden of the Resurrection. 
There He won the victory over death and the 
grave. 


140 A WATERED GARDEN 


And the Garden of Paradise is spoken of in the 
Book of Revelation. It is our eternal home, where 
sin cannot enter, where nothing that is evil can 
find a place, but where there is peace and Joy for- 
ever in the Lord. 

Some one has written these beautiful lines about 
gardens: 


“The kiss of the sun for pardon, 
The song of the birds for mirth— 
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden 
Than anywhere else on earth.” 

In the book of Jeremiah, where God speaks of 
restoring His people and of bringing them back to 
their home, He says: “And their soul shall be as a 
watered garden.” 

That is the picture I want every one of you to 
think of. Our hearts and lives are to be the gar- 
den of the Lord, and He wants them to be a watered 
garden—a garden well planted, well watered, and 
well looked after. 

You know that one of the most important things 
in a garden is that good seeds are sown and planted 
there. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap.” In childhood is the time when the 
good seed must be sown in the garden of the 
heart. Faith, hope, love, purity, humility, meek- 
ness, kindness, honesty, and truth are some of the 
seeds that must be planted when the heart is young 
so that they may bear rich fruit in a beautiful life 
and character in manhood and womanhood. 

And the garden must be well watered to be beau- 
tiful and fruitful. When there is a dry spell, the 


A WATERED GARDEN 141 


faithful gardener will take the sprinkling-pot or the 
hose and will water his garden regularly every day 
so that the plants will not shrivel up and die. Our 
soul-gardens need the refreshing showers of the 
Holy Spirit, and we must ask God day by day to 
give us these showers of blessing. 

And the garden must be well looked after. It re- 
quires constant care and attention. The weeds must 
be kept out so that the good fruit may grow. 

It is said that near some farm houses there used 
to be a corner called “the devil’s nook,” which was 
left to itself and became a wilderness. It was be- 
lieved that by giving one spot over to the evil one, 
he would not injure the rest of the farm. | 

You can often tell what kind of people live in a 
house by looking at their garden. Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge, the great writer, was once visited by a 
man who was a skeptic, who said that children 
should not be taught religion but should be allowed 
to grow up naturally. The two walked out into Mr. 
Coleridge’s garden and found it a mass of weeds. 
The skeptic asked him why he allowed his garden 
to be in such a state, why he did not pull the weeds 
and plant flowers. Mr. Coleridge answered with 
a smile, “Oh, I want my garden to grow naturally, 
as you think children ought to grow.” 

Our soul-gardens need care and cultivation. We 
must pull up the weeds of sin and bad habits or 
they will soon overrun the soul and spoil it. And 
we must cultivate the good things that we may bear 
abundant fruit to the glory of God. 


XXXII. 


A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT 
“Behold, a basket of summer fruit.’—Amos 8:1. 


N almost every dining-table at the present 
() time we see a basket or a dish of summer 

fruit. In it we find bananas, oranges, ap- 
ples, plums, pears, peaches, and now and _ then, 
grapes. There are also found on many tables, at 
one or another of the meals, cantaloupes, watermel- 
ons, pineapples, blackberries and huckleberries. Less 
than a week ago I partook of a meal at a friend’s 
home where delicious strawberries were served. 

Most of us are fond of fruit, and this year we are 
happy because there is such an abundance of it. The 
harvest services which will be held in most of our 
churches during August and September will show 
an abundance and variety of grain, flowers, and 
fruit, and some of the harvest-home sermons will 
doubtless be preached from this very text. 

The prophet Amos, to whom God showed this 
vision of a basket of summer fruit, lived in Pales- 
tine almost twenty-seven hundred years ago. A 
basket of summer fruit in his country would be 
somewhat different from one in our country. 

Palestine is said to be a land of orchards. All 
the fruit-trees of the temperate zone are found 
there. The most common are the apricot, the fig, 
the orange, pomegranate, mulberry, pistachio, al- 
mond, and walnut. But the two chief fruit trees of 
Palestine are the olive and the grape-vine. 


142 


A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT 143 


A basket of summer fruit such as Amos saw may 
have had in it apricots, figs, oranges, olives, and 
grapes. 

But God meant to teach Amos a lesson by means 
of this basket of summer fruit, as He did with all 
the visions He showed him. In order to understand 
this lesson fully we ought to know a little Hebrew. 
There is a play on words here, a sort of a pun. 
The Hebrew word for “summer fruit” is katz. And 
there is another Hebrew word, spelled ketz, but 
pronounced the same as the other, which means 
nendh 

If you read the first three verses of the eighth 
chapter of Amos, with this idea in mind you will 
know what God means to say to Amos: “Thus the 
Lord Jehovah showed me: and behold, a basket of 
summer fruit. And he said, Amos, what seest 
thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit 
(kaitz). Then said Jehovah unto me, The end 
(Retz) is come upon my people Israel: I will not 
pass by them any more. And the songs of the tem- 
ple shall be wailings in that day, saith the Lord 
Jehovah; the dead bodies shall be many; in every 
place shall they cast them forth with silence.” 

In this vision of the basket of summer fruit God 
wants to tell Amos that “as summer fruit, when 
ripe, may not last long, so Israel, ripe in her sins, 
shall now come to an end.” 

We all know that a basket of summer fruit, how- 
ever beautiful it may be, if allowed to stand too 
long will decay. There is generally one of the fruits 
that begins to decay first, and that infects one of 


144 A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT 


the others, and so one after another is specked 
until all of them decay. 

When one apple in a barrel begins to decay it will 
soon infect others, and if nothing is done to check 
the process the whole barrel of apples will decay and 
be spoiled. 

When a boy or a girl becomes bad, he or she can 
do a great deal of harm, and may spread their bad 
thoughts and habits among many boys and girls. 
When one boy in a group swears or uses other bad 
words, it will not be long until the whole group 
learns and uses those words. A bad habit in one 
girl is soon copied by others. 

A little boy, whose mother told him not to have 
anything to do with boys who used bad words, was 
one day playing with some other children. One 
of the boys, to whom he had lent his drum, became 
angry and used ugly words. Johnny marched right 
up to the boy and asked for his drum, saying, “I 
must go to my mother.” “Why? What for?” the 
children all cried. “Mamma never lets me play 
with boys who use bad words,” said Johnny. ‘Well, | 
I won’t use any more bad words if I play with you,” 
said the boy. “Ill ask my mother,” said Johnny, 
“and if she says I may, then I will; but I shouldn’t 
like to learn such words.” “Tell your mother, 
Johnny,” answered the boy, “I’m done now; she 
needn’t ever be afraid any more of using bad words, 
for I just won’t—that’s all, if she thinks so.” And 
he kept his word, and Johnny did not become 
specked because he had a wise and good mother. 


A BASKET OF SUMMER FRUIT 145 


Is it not a grand thing that we have found 
ways in which to keep some of the summer fruit 
from decay so that we may enjoy it during the long 
winter months? 

Canning is a process by which many of these 
fruits are preserved and kept for future use. This 
process was found out during the Civil War when 
it was found necessary to put food away for the 
soldiers in a form in which they might carry it on 
long marches. It is said that now there are almost 
a billion cans of food matter put up in the United 
States in a single year. 

Cold storage is another way in which our sum- 
mer fruit is kept for the winter. When I was a boy, 
my grandfather buried apples in the garden and 
covered them with straw, and on Christmas we en- 
joyed the delicious summer fruit. But by means 
of cold storage fruit may be kept a long time, and 
sometimes it is possible to have old and new apples 
in the same dish. 

God also has a way of keeping us and preserving 
us from danger and harm and from sin and evil, 
so that we will not fall into decay and destruction. 
Let us often pray this little prayer: 


“Father, lead me day by day. 
Ever in Thine own sweet way; 
Teach me to be pure and true, 
Show me what I ought to do. 


“When in danger make me brave, 
Make me know that Thou canst save; 
Keep me safe by Thy dear side, 

Let me in Thy love abide.” 


XXXIV. 
LESSONS FROM THE SPIDER 
“And whose trust 1s a spider’s web.’—Jos 8:14. 


HE word “spider” is found only twice in the 
Bible, and both of them do not refer to the 
spider itself, but to the “spider’s web.’ The 

other text is found in Isaiah 59:5, “And weave the 
spider’s web.” 

The text I was going to use is Proverbs 30:28, 
which reads: “The spider taketh hold with her 
hands, and is in king’s palaces.” But when I came 
to look it up in the American Revised Version, 
which is the text I always use, I found that the word 
spider was not there at all, for the verse reads: 

“The lizard taketh hold with her hands, yet is 
she in king’s palaces.” 

Most persons dislike spiders, and I think the best 
thing for small children is to keep away from them. 
The house is not a good place for spiders, and a 
spider’s web in a room is not a sign of cleanli- . 
ness. 

The spider is not the same kind of an insect as 
the wasp, the bee, and the ant. These all have six 
legs and are born fullgrown. The spider has eight 
legs, and is born as a baby spider and grows to be 
larger by and by. The body of the spider is hard and 
is made in rings. The spider’s body itself, however, 
is soft, but its skin is tough, and it changes its skin 


146 


LESSONS FROM THE SPIDER .147 


often when it is very young. Most of the spiders 
have eight eyes. Spiders never have any wings. 
On the head of the spider are two short fangs, or 
jaws, with which it bites, and they have the poison 
in them. The bite of a common spider does not do 
a man or child much harm. 

All spiders spin webs. The hind part of the spider 
is large and round, and it has six small round tubes. 
Each of these tubes is made of many very small 
tubes, which have in them a kind of glue out of 
which the web is made. When this glue is drawn 
out into the air it gets hard, is as fine as silk, and is 
woven into a net which we call a web. 

Spiders make webs, nests and snares. The webs 
are to live in; the nests are for the baby spiders; 
and the snares are to catch food, such as flies, ants, 
bees, wasps, and other insects. When one of these 
insects gets into the web, the spider feels the line 
move and runs out to catch the insect. First she 
kills or stuns the prey with her fangs and their 
poison, then she winds a fine web around it, making 
a neat bundle which she carries off. 

Spiders and their webs are very beautiful if looked 
at through a microscope. Spiders are also very neat. 
They hate dust and dirt, and will work very hard to 
rid their webs of any dirt that may gather upon 
them. If they cannot get the dirt out of the web 
any other way they will cut the dirty piece out and 
mend the web with new lines. The poet Alexander 
Pope has written this couplet: 


“The Spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine, 
Feels at each thread and lives along the line.” 


148 LESSONS FROM THE SPIDER 


Spiders are very busy little creatures, and the 
wise man might have told the sluggard to go to the 
spider, as well as to the ant, to consider her ways 
and be wise. 

Many stories and fables have been told about 
spiders, and some superstitious people say that a 
spider is “lucky” and to kill it is “unlucky.” Some 
one has said that if it were not for the spiders and 
the work they are doing we should be like the Egyp- 
tians in the time of Moses—plagued and eaten up of 
flies. 

A number of stories have been told of men who 
were saved by hiding in caves over the openings of 
which spiders wove their webs and the pursuers 
went on assured that no one was in the cave. 

In the early days of Christianity there was a good 
man by the name of Felix of Nola. He was hated 
for his religion, and had to flee for his life. He 
went to a lonely place that was full of rocks, and 
hid himself in one of the caves among these rocks. 
While he was hiding there he saw a spider weaving 
her web across the opening of the cave. After the 
web covered the mouth of the cave he heard men’s 
voices near by, and he gave himself up for lost, for 
he knew they were seeking him. They came to the 
mouth of the cave and there they stopped. When 
they saw the opening covered with a spider’s web, 
they said, “No one has passed in here or the web 
would be broken,” and they went on to look else- 
where. When they were gone Nola escaped, and 
when he spoke of his experience afterwards he used 


LESSONS FROM THE SPIDER 149 


to say: “Where God is, a spider’s web is as a wall; 
where He is not, a wall is but as a spider’s web.” 

Here is where the meaning of our text comes 
in. The trust of the godless is said to be like a 
spider’s web—they have nothing strong to depend 
upon. But for those who love God even a spider’s 
web can be a protection. 


When I was a school boy I was delighted with 
the story of Robert Bruce and the spider, as told by 
Sir Walter Scott. 

Robert Bruce had the right to be the next king of 
Scotland, but there were many obstacles in the way 
and he was so discouraged that he felt like giving up 
all further effort to enjoy his right. He lay on a 
wretched bed in a cabin thinking about his plans, 
when he saw a spider hanging at the end of a long 
thread, trying to swing himself from one beam in 
the roof to another, for the purpose of fixing the 
line on which he meant to stretch his web. He saw 
that the insect made the attempt again and again 
without success, until it had tried six times and 
failed. He remembered that he, too, had made six 
unsuccessful efforts to gain his point and had 
failed. While he was wondering what the spider 
would do, he saw the insect muster all its force 
and make a seventh attempt, which was successful. 
He resolved to go forth and make another effort 
to secure the throne which belonged to him, and he 
succeeded and became King Robert the First, of 
Scotland. We might almost say that a spider made 
him king. 


XXXV. 
TEEGRIEAT OWL DE SEA! 
“The sea is his, and he made it.’—PsAtm 95:5. 


N the first chapter of Genesis we read: “And 
] God said, Let the waters under the heavens be 

gathered together unto one place, and let the 
dry land appear; and it was so. And God called the 
dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the 
waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was 
good.” 

Besides the ocean, the word “‘sea’”’ in the Bible 
sometimes means the Mediterranean Sea, the Dead 
Sea, the Red Sea, the Sea of Galilee, and even the 
Nile River, and the Euphrates River. In the one 
hundred and fourth Psalm the writer says: 


“Yonder is the sea, great and wide, 

Wherein are things creeping innumerable, 

Both small and great beasts. 

There go the ships; 

There is leviathan whom thou hast formed to play 
therein.” 


This refers to the Mediterranean Sea, which was 
the largest body of water most of the people of Pal- 
estine ever saw in Bible times. 

Not long ago I was at the seashore, and I thought 
of the many readers of my Junior Sermons and how 
I might preach to them about the ocean which has 
so many lessons to teach us. I have been at the 
ocean, on the ocean, across the ocean, and in the 


150 


THE GREAT, WIDE SEA 151 


ocean, and if the Psalmist called the Mediterranean 
Sea “great and wide,’ what would he have called 
the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean? I had 
the pleasure of crossing the ocean in one of the 
fastest steamships in the world, and yet it took 
five and a half days to go from New York to Liver- 
pool. This gives us an idea of the greatness of the 
ocean. It takes most steamships ten days to make 
the voyage, and some even longer than that. 

There is much more water on the surface of the 
earth than land. If you would divide the earth’s 
surface into seven parts, five of the parts would be 
water and only two of them land. The ocean is also 
very deep. The Pacific Ocean is believed to be 
deeper than any other sea, and its average depth is 
almost three miles. The greatest depths of the ocean 
are from five to six miles, and there may be places 
where it is seven miles deep. It is quite likely that 
the greatest depths of the ocean are about the same 
as the greatest heights of the mountains on land. 
There are some men who think that if the highest 
mountains were sunk into the deepest depths of the 
ocean, the waters of the latter would easily cover 
them. 

The sea is also very strong, and it has dashed 
great ships to pieces and has tossed around great 
rocks as though they were mere pebbles. 

One of the interesting questions about the sea is, 
why it never gets any larger. This question was 
answered more than two thousand years ago by a 
man with a long name—FEcclesiastes, which means 
“the preacher.” He said: “All the rivers run into 


152 THE GREAT, WIDE SEA 


the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whither 
the rivers go, thither they go again.” This Bible 
writer must have known something about what is 
called evaporation, which means that the sun sucks 
up some of the water from the sea, which is gath- 
ered into clouds and falls upon the earth as rain, 
and flows into creeks and rivers, and at last gets 
back into the ocean again. This process is going 
on all the time, and in this way God balances the 
water supply of the earth. 


Another interesting thing about the sea is the 
tides. If you spend a day at the seashore, sitting 
in the sand and watching the waves, as I have often 
done, you will notice that the waves come up higher 
and higher upon the beach until they have reached 
the highest point, which is called “high tide.’ Then 
they begin to go down again, lower and lower, until 
they reach the lowest point, which is called “low 
tide.” The rising tide is sometimes called “flood 
tide” and the sinking tide “ebb tide.” The high tide 
and low tide are about six hours apart, so that there 
are two high tides and two low tides every twenty- 
four hours. 

Some day you will learn all about the cause of 
the tides in school, and then you will know more 
about them. I might say that the tides are caused 
by the moon. The moon goes around the earth all 
the time, but we do not always see it. It is one of 
the laws of nature that all matter pulls, or attracts, 
all other matter, and is pulled, or attracted, by it. 
The whole earth and the whole moon feel this pull, 
but the water on the earth, because it is not solid, 


THE GREAT, WIDE SEA 153 


is pulled especially toward the moon and this heaps 
the water up into waves and causes the tides. If 
the moon had oceans, the pull of the earth would 
cause tides there also, and as the earth is very much 
larger than the moon these tides would be much 
greater than those of our oceans. 

I do not have time to tell you now about what is 
found in the sea, which would be too long a story, 
but some day I may tell you something about that 
and I am sure you will find it very interesting. I 
also wanted to tell you something about the Sea of 
Galilee, ‘“where Jesus loved so much to be,” but I 
must leave that for another sermon. 

The Psalmist says in our text that God made the 
sea, and it is His. God is greater than the sea. The 
sea is very wide and very deep, but God’s mercy 
is still wider, and His love still deeper. As a great 
hymn writer, Frederick W. Faber, has put it: 

“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, 
Like the wideness of the sea; 
There’s a kindness in His justice, 
Which is more than liberty.” 

The sea is very strong, but God is stronger. An- 
other great hymn writer, William Cowper, says 
about Him: 

“God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform; 

He plants His footsteps in the sea, 
And rides upon the storm.” 

The winds and the waves obey His will, and 
when He says, “Peace, be still,” there is a great 
calm. I was not afraid to cross the ocean because 
God is there—the sea is His, and He made it. 


XXXVI. 
RODE ELE VW DO ETE Ec hos Gigs 


“And may your spirit and soul and body be pre- 
served entire.’—I THEs. 5:23. 


X Y ACATION days are over, and vacation ser- 


mons are over. School days are before us, 

and we must get down to solid work again. 
At one of the summer conferences I heard a lec- 
turer quote the words which I have made the sub- 
ject of my sermon, “Put the Whole Child to 
School.” 

When I was a boy, the chief thing that was 
thought of in a child’s school life was the training 
of the mind, the learning of the things that were in 
the school books. 


We learned a great deal that was helpful to us, 
but we learned it in a somewhat mechanical way. 
We had the school yards in which we could play 
during the short period of recess and the noon hour. 
We went to Sunday school and learned some Bible 
verses, and now and then some spiritual lessons that 
were helpful to us. But in those days you did not 
hear of putting the whole child to school. That is 
an idea that has arisen within recent years, and a 
great deal more will be said about it during the next 
ten or fifteen years than ever before. 

Men and women have made a special study of 
children, and are trying to help them more and — 


154 


WHOLE CHILD TO SCHOOL 155 


more that their spirit and soul and body may be 
preserved entire. The mind needs training, and 
children must learn their lessons. But oh, how 
much more interesting the lessons are made in our 
day! By means of objects and stories and little 
plays the lessons are taught in such a nice and at- 
tractive way that children learn almost before they 
know it. Of course, when they grow older they must 
do harder lessons and must learn how to master 
them if they want to make anything worth while of 
themselves. 

During the summer I have been reading the “Life 
of Sir Walter Scott,’ and was especially interested 
in his boyhood and the things that helped to make 
him a great man, a great poet, and a great novelist. 
When he was a man, his deepest regret was that he 
did not study harder when a boy, and he said that 
he would have given half of his reputation if he 
could rest the other half on a sound foundation 
of learning. 

Your parents and teachers know better what 1s 
good for you and what you ought to study in your 
childhood than you do yourselves, and you ought to 
do your very best during your school days so that 
you will not have to regret your neglect when you 
grow to manhood and womanhood. No boy or 
girl ought to think of stopping school before they 
have graduated from the high school, and as many 
as possible ought to go to college or some other 
higher school of learning. 


But the mind is not all of the child. The body 
must also be cared for and attended to and trained 


156 WHOLE CHILD TO SCHOOL 


aright, and I am glad to say that a great deal more 
care and attention are given to the health and 
strength of children than was done years ago. Play- 
grounds and exercises are provided for the children 
not only during the school months, but also during 
the vacation months, when trained young men and 
women look after the play and recreation of the 
children of all ages. The children’s bodies are care- 
fully examined and looked after by doctors and 
dentists and nurses, so that they may grow up to be 
stronger and healthier, and may be happier and 
more useful in life. 


To speak again of Sir Walter Scott, some of you 
may know that he became a cripple when he was a 
little baby. When he was only eighteen months old 
he had a fever caused by the cutting of large teeth, 
and when the fever left him he had lost the power 
of his right leg. Everything that might be helpful 
to him was done for his recovery, but he remained 
lame all the rest of his life. He, however, exercised 
so much in the open air that he became strong and 
robust, and was healthy all his life after leaving 
school. 

Perhaps the most neglected part of our children’s 
training has been their moral and spiritual training. 
In the Christian homes of years ago the children re- 
ceived a great deal of spiritual attention from their 
parents, especially the mothers. They were familiar 
with the Bible, and knew many of the finest verses 
in the Bible by heart. In many of the so-called 
Christian homes of today, the parents are too busy 
to give much time to the spiritual training of their 


WHOLE CHILD TO SCHOOL 157 


children. They expect the Sunday school and the 
Church to do this work. But the best Sunday 
school cannot take the place of the mother in this 
work, but can only help the mother in her efforts 
to do it. A child spends about twenty-five hours 
a week in the public school, and only one hour in 
the Sunday school, where the lesson period is only 
fifteen or twenty minutes long. This is too short a 
time to give the right kind of spiritual training, and 
the children who do not receive additional attention 
at home fare very poorly in this respect. 


Let me refer once more to Sir Walter Scott, to 
say that both his father and mother were devout 
Christians. They went to Church every Sunday, 
“attended by their fine family of young children, 
and their domestic servants’ On Sunday evenings 
the children were examined in the Catechism and the 
sermons they had heard during the day. You will 
know from what I have said about him, that Sir 
Walter Scott received the help in his boyhood that 
would keep his spirit and soul and body entire. 

A new day is coming, in fact it is about here, 
when more time and attention will be given to the 
religious training of our children. Many Churches 
and Sunday schools are preparing to give the chil- 
dren weekday religious instruction for two or three 
hours on some weekday afternoon, when they will 
be excused from the public schools and will be given 
school credits for what they will be taught in this 
way. 

Some Churches are doing a little work through 
their Junior Congregations, where the children learn 


158 WHOLE CHILD TO SCHOOL 


some spiritual lessons from the story-sermons, and 
also through their Mission Bands and Junior Chris- 
tian Endeavor societies, and, in recent years, through 
the Daily Vacation Bible Schools which are held 
during the summer months. 

I will lengthen the sermon just enough to say 
that I believe that the children in our Church Or- 
phans’ Homes receive an almost ideal training to 
preserve entire their spirit and soul and body. In 
Bethany Orphans’ Home, at Womelsdorf, whose 
anniversary many of us attended a week ago, the 
time of the average child of Junior Congregation 
age is better divided than that of the average child 
in most of our homes. He sleeps from nine to ten 
hours, works and studies about five to six hours a 
day, plays about three hours a day, is at the table 
about an hour and a half a day, receives religious 
training for an hour to an hour and a quarter a day 
during the week and four hours on Sunday, leav- 
ing some hours each day to be at liberty and to read 
and meditate and to attend to miscellaneous things. 
All this should be a blessing to any child. 


XXXVII. 
PERSEVERANCE 
“The waters wear the stones.”—Jos 14:18. 


HIS is a large subject for a simple sermon, but 

it is the best word I can think of for what 

I want to say. Steadfastness has almost the 
same meaning, but perseverance is a stronger word. 
It comes from two Latin words which mean very 
strict, or very severe. If you want to persevere in 
anything you must be very strict, very severe, with 
yourself, so that you may succeed. 

It is not enough to put the whole child to school, 
about which I preached last week, but the child 
must persevere in its lessons in order to master 
them and to get the benefit from them which they 
are to give. 


A few weeks ago I was on top of the Pocono 
Mountains, about eight thousand feet above the 
level of the sea. I heard the call of the mountains, 
and I had to climb up (in an automobile) to the 
very top. While up there, some friends took us to 
see a falls in a small creek right on top of the moun- 
tain. It is not a high falls, nor a very large one, 
but it is very beautiful. It shows how the creek 
has worn away the stones by running over them for 
many thousands of years, for, as our text says, “The 
waters wear the stones.” That is a lesson of perse- 
veranice. 


159 


i 


160 PERSEVERANCE 


We all know how strong and hard a rock is, and 
how weak is a drop of water. But we can find 
many places where the waters have worn the stones 
and have made a way for themselves, sometimes 
wearing away hundreds of feet of rock. It is said 
that the Niagara Falls have worn back seven miles 
through the hard limestone over which they pour 
their thundering waters. 

When I was at the seashore not long ago, I 
picked up shells and pebbles on the beach that had 
been worn smooth by the waters of the ocean. It 
takes the ocean a long time—many, many years— 
to wear some of these stones and shells so nice and 
smooth. 


One of the great lessons for every schoolboy and 
schoolgirl to learn is this lesson of perseverance. 
It is not always the brightest scholar that learns the 
most. He may be beaten by the hard worker, the 
persevering boy, who keeps on with his lessons from 
day to day. Ina race, it is not always the runner 
who takes the lead at the start that wins in the end; 
but the steady runner, who keeps up his pace all 
the time—the persevering runner—is the one who 
usually wins the race. 

There was a boy, long, long ago, who got tired 
of his studies at school, especially mathematics, and 
he was going to give it all up. One day he said to 
himself, “I shall give it up, I shall never be a 
clever man.” As he was thinking about it, he saw 
a piece of paper pasted on the cover of his book. As 
he looked at this paper he thought he would like 
to have it, but he could never tell why. He got 


PERSEVERANCE 161 


some water and soaked the paper off, and on it 
were written these words, “Go on, sir; go on, sir.” 
And he said afterwards, “That was my master; I 
had no other master ; that bit of paper was my mas- 
ter. I went on—I went on; I would not give up, 
and all through my life that has been my master, 
and to it I owe everything.” 

He learned the lesson of perseverance, and he 
became one of the greatest mathematicians and a 
great astronomer. 

John Ruskin, the great English writer, says that 
of all the pieces of the Bible his mother taught him, 
the one that cost him the most to learn—and for 
that reason made him hate it when a boy—was the 
one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. If you look in 
your Bibles and see that it has one hundred and sev- 
enty-six verses, being the longest chapter in the 
Bible, you will not wonder that it took him a long 
time to learn it by heart. But when he was a man 
he said it had become of all the most precious 
to him, and he thanked his mother for her perse- 
veranice. 

To show what a persevering teacher she was, he 
tells us that she kept on for three weeks to teach 
him the accent of the word “of” in the lines: 


“Shall any following spring revive 
The ashes of the urn?” 


“But had it taken three years,’ he said, “she 
would have done it, having once undertaken to do 
ity 


162 PERSEVERANCE 


Persevering parents, persevering teachers, and 
_ persevering children help to make the great men 
and women of the world. 

Our own beloved poet, Longfellow, wrote: 


“The heights by great men reached and kept 
Were not attained by sudden flight, 

But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night.” 


I hope every one of you, boys and girls, will learn 
the lesson of perseverance, and I am sure you will 
learn all the other lessons of life well; and as “the 
waters wear the stones,’ you will solve the hardest 
problems, do the hardest task, and win the greatest 
victory. 

“One step more, and the race is ended; 
One word more, and the lesson’s done; 


One toil more, and a long rest follows 
At set of sun. 


“Who would fail, for one step withholden? 
ho would fail, for one word unsaid? 
Who would fail, for a pause too early? 
Sound sleep the dead.” 


XXXVITTI. 
PLE SHOES OF HAPPINESS? 


“Whoso trusteth in Jehovah, happy is he.’— 
Prov. 16:24. 


NE of our modern American poets, Edwin 
() Markham, has put into verse an Eastern 

story which he calls “The Shoes of Happi- 
ness.” It runs as follows: 

In Turkey lived a sultan who was very sick. All 
the known remedies were used on him, but they did 
not help. Thirteen doctors tried their best to cure 
him. He cut off the head of one of them and sent 
the others away. Everybody was puzzled, and no 
one seemed to know what to do to help the sultan. 

At last a fortune teller crept into the room and 
said she knew the only thing that would cure the 
sick man. He must send his vizier, his chief officer, 
to rummage the east and the west and find for him 
the shoes of a person wholly blest. She said to 
the sultan: ‘You must wear the shoes of a happy 
man.’ He called his vizier and said: “I need those 
shoes; let the shoes be here!”” You know a sultan 
has power over the life and death of his subjects, 
and he told the vizier that he must bring the shoes 
or he would lose his head. 

At early dawn the vizier started out with three 
companions to find a man with a happy heart from 
whom he could secure the shoes of happiness. He 


163 


164 THE SHOES OF HAPPINESS 


thought it would be an easy matter to find these 
shoes, and he hoped to be back before evening to 
feed his doves. 

His first thought was that the shoes of happiness 
could be found among the rich, “where the joy runs 
high,” so he hurried his camels on to find the man 
who wore the desired shoes. As luck would have 
it, at the road’s first turn they found a group of 
rich persons on their way to the boat to take a ride 
on the sea. He called to them: “How many are 
there with never a grief?” But they all had their 
wants and their woes, and he turned away disap- 
pointed. 

He next went to the door of a poor man’s cot- 
tage and said to him: 


“Ho, Hassan, ho! you have children seven; 
Is your gate not joy, is your hut not heaven?” 


But the poor man had his troubles and his wor- 
ries, and the shoes of happiness were not there. 

The vizier and his companions went on their way 
and met many persons of all kinds whom they 
asked the one question and received from all the 
one reply, “for each heart carried its secret sigh.” 
They did find a laughing boy, “too glad to know 
that he lived in joy,” but his little torn shoes were 
too small for the sick sultan. 

On down the road, under a tree, they found a 
poet making his rhyme, and the vizier thought he 
surely must be happy, but he shook his head as he 
replied: “Out of the grieving the poet sings.” 

They went through the grand bazaar where a 


THE SHOES OF HAPPINESS = 165 


thousand things of all kinds were for sale, but the 
shoes of happiness none could give him. 

They went to the fountains were the people gath- 
ered to fill their water-skins with the refreshing 
liquid. The vizier cried his question to every ear, 
“but each had his sorrow, his folly, his fear.” He 
asked young and old the same question, but received 
from both the same answer. The young were rest- 
less to become older, and the old were sad because 
their young days had passed away. 

They next turned to the tavern, where all kinds 
of men gathered and made merry. Surely, among 
these there must be one who wore the shoes they 
sought. The place rang with jokes and laughter, 
but as the vizier went from one to the other they 
all had their complaints and regrets and sorrows, 
and those who had traveled far and wide had never 
heard of “a mortal without a grief.” He met a 
scholar who was pointed out to him as a happy 
man, but he said: “I am not glad; I am only wise.” 

At last someone said he knew of a happy man, 
but he lived far away in Ispahan. The vizier, afraid 
of losing his head, turned the four camels in that 
direction. When they arrived at Ispahan they found 
the man bent with sorrow, for he had lost his son. 
But he told them of a man about whom they said 
that he was ever glad. “But,” said he, “he is afar 
in old Bagdad.” When they found him, “he also 
carried a sorrow-pack.” But he told them about an- 
other man in far Algiers of whom there was a ru- 
mor that he “never had tasted tears.” When they 


166 THE SHOES OF HAPPINESS 


got near to the place they were told by the chief 
of a caravan that the man was dead. 

The vizier’s heart began to sink within him, and 
as they turned about to return home the trickling 
tears ran down his cheeks. As they came near 
their home city they heard sweet music on the 
morning air. They went aside to see whence the 
music came, and they found a young man “stretched 
out with his arm for a pillow,’ blowing the “‘thin, 
sweet sounds from a pipe of willow.” At last they 
found the man they were looking for, and in an- 
swer to the vizier’s question he said he had no care, 
no lands, no gold, nor “favor nor fortune nor 
fame,” but he was well content with his lot. 

The vizier ran out into the field and cried: “You 
are the man. Your shoes, then, quick for the great 
sultan.” 

The young man looked up with a carefree face 
and said: “Yes, mighty vizier—but I have no 
shoes.” 

The poet does not tell us whether the vizier lost 
his head or whether the sultan died, but the shoes 
of happiness could not be found. 

Does not this story teach us that happiness can- 
not be found in outward things, but is a matter of 
the heart and mind? If the sultan had been a 
Christian, and had read the Bible, he would have 
found the way to happiness in our text: ‘“Who- 
so trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.” Christ says: 
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest,’ which means con- 
tentment, happiness and peace. | 


XXXIX, 
HIDDEN PICTURES 


“And destroy all their pictures.” (A. V.)—Nuvum. 
Weve 


HIS text is exactly what I was looking for, 
but I had to take it out of the Authorized 
Version, while, as you know, it is my rule to 

use the texts of the American Revised Version. The 
word “pictures” is found three times in the Author- 
ized Version, but in every text in the American 
Revised Version a different word is used for it, so 
that the word “picture” or “pictures” is not found 
at all in the American Revised Version. Instead of 
saying, “And destroy all their pictures,” the Amer- 
ican Revised Version says, “And destroy all their 
figured stones.” 

When the children of Israel came near to the 
promised land, the land of Canaan, into which God 
was going to lead them, after wandering forty years 
in the wilderness, God told Moses what they were to 
do when they got into the promised land. 

He said to Moses, “Speak unto the children of 
Israel, and say unto them, When ye pass over the 
Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall drive 
out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, 
and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all 
their molten images, and demolish all their high 
places: and ye shall take possession of the land, and 


167 


168 HIDDEN PICTURES 


dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land 
to possess it. * * * Butif ye will not drive out 
the inhabitants of the land from before you, then 
shall those that ye let remain of them be as pricks 
in your eyes, and as thorns in your sides, and they 
shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. And it 
shall come to pass, that as I thought to do unto 
them, so will I do unto you.” 

It was the will of God that the children of Israel 
should keep themselves separate from the idolatrous 
people of the land, and should destroy all their pic- 
tures and images which might lead them to forget 
Him and to worship idols. 

God knew very well what an influence pictures 
have on the mind even if they are carved on stones, 
and He did not want anything to remain in the 
country which would give them wrong ideas of re- 
ligion. Pictures have just as great an influence on 
the mind today as they ever had, and the impres- 
sion made on the mind through the eyes seems great- 
er than that which is made through the ears. 

A short time ago I heard the editor of one of 
our city newspapers tell the children of my Junior 
Congregation a story which shows how long pic- 
tures, even though they are hidden for a time, will 
last. He said that when he was a boy, over fifty 
years ago, they lived in a three-story house in one 
of the cities of our State. The third floor of this 
house, not being needed by the family, was given to 
the children as a play-room. They played different 
games, such as children delighted in in those days, 
but when they became tired of their play they got 


HIDDEN PICTURES 169 


into mischief. They drew all kinds of pictures on 
the walls, some good and some bad; and wrote sen- 
tences and expressions there, some nice and some 
naughty. 

After some years, the room was papered and 
put to other use, and the pictures and writings were 
covered up. Not long ago the room was repapered. 
The old paper had to be scraped off the walls, and 
there on the bare walls were the pictures and sayings 
of fifty years ago; they had been hidden a long 
time, but now they were brought to light! 

So it is with the pictures that are put into the 
minds of boys and girls, and written on the walls of 
their memory. Though they may be hidden for a 
long time, or even forgotten, they will come back 
to them some time. If they are bad pictures and 
bad memories they will haunt them when they grow 
to be men and women, and will give them much 
regret and sorrow. They will be, as God said to 
the children of Israel, as pricks in their eyes and as 
thorns in their sides, and will vex them in the 
years to come. 

If they are good pictures, they will bring pleas- 
ant memories when they come back, and will give 
great joy to the soul. 

The motion pictures of our day, which the chil- 
dren call “the movies,’ may do a great deal of 
good or a great deal of harm, according to their 
nature. We have not had them long enough to see 
the full fruitage of their influence, but we know 
of cases where they have led boys and girls into sin 
and crime. Parents ought to be very careful about 


170 HIDDEN PICTURES 


the pictures they allow their boys and girls to see, 
for when they are written on memory’s walls they 
are hard to destroy and may come back to haunt 
them fifty years after. 

In the home and the school and the Church, and 
even in “the movies,’ we ought to store the minds 
of our boys and girls with good pictures and stories, 
which, even though they may be hidden for years, 
will have a good influence upon their lives and 
characters, and will be a sweet memory to them a 
long time afterwards. 

A famous portrait of Dante was painted on the 
walls of the Bargello, at Florence. For many years 
it was supposed that the picture had been destroyed. 
Men had heard of it, but no one living had ever 
seen it. But an artist who believed that it was still 
in existence, made up his mind that he would try and 
find it. He went into the place where it was said 
that it had been painted. The room was used as a 
storage room for lumber and straw. The walls were 
covered with a dirty whitewash. The artist had the 
rubbish taken away, and began to remove the white- 
wash from the wall. At last the beautiful picture 
of Dante, which had been hidden for many years, 
was brought to light and admired by the world. 

In our work for the children we want to keep 
the image of Christ in their hearts beautiful and 
fresh, so that it will not be covered and hidden by 
sin. 


XL. 
THE CHILDREN’S KINGDOM 


“To such belongeth the kingdom of heaven.’— 
Matt. 19:14. 


F Jesus had not said so, no one would think 

of saying, or dare to say, that the kingdom of 

heaven belongs to the children, and to those 
who have a childlike spirit. The saying of Jesus 
means more than “of such is the kingdom of heav- 
en; it really means that the kingdom is theirs, be- 
longs to them. St. Mark reports Jesus as saying, 
“To such belongeth the kingdom of God,” which 
means about the same, but seems to be a little 
stronger than “the kingdom of heaven.” 

In reading the early history of the Christian 
Church we do not find very much to show that the 
men thought as much of the children as Jesus did 
and as He wanted them to think of them. Now 
and then some good Christian man or woman would 
do something special for the children, but the 
Church as a whole did not treat them as though 
the kingdom of God belonged to them. 

It is only after almost nineteen hundred years of 
Christian history that the children are beginning 
to be thought of as Jesus thought of them, and now 
we hear a great deal about what ought to be done 
for the children, and many plans are being carried 
out to help them. It is true that more than a 


171 


172 THE CHILDREN’S KINGDOM 


hundred and forty years ago Robert Raikes and 
some of his friends started a Sunday school in Eng- 
land, which was. the beginning of a great work for 
the children of the world. I took a picture of his 
beautiful statue on the Thames Embankment, in 
London, and prize it highly because he was one of 
the men who took the words of Jesus to heart,—‘“to 
such belongeth the kingdom of heaven.” 

The good that has been done by the Sunday 
school can never be told, but if every Sunday school 
teacher really believed that the kingdom of God 
belonged to the children, a great deal more would 
be done for them. 

When I was a boy the Sunday schools were not 
prepared to do the splendid work they are doing 
now, but they taught the children to read the 
Bible and to learn some of the finest verses by 
heart. For every verse we could recite from mem- 
ory we received a blue ticket, and for every five 
blue tickets we received a red ticket, and for a cer- 
tain number of red tickets we received a New Testa- 
ment, a Bible or some other book. Many of the 
verses of Scripture which I have in my heart today 
I learned in this way when a boy. 

But during the past twenty-five years more prog- 
ress has been made in Sunday school work and 
in other work for the children than in a hundred or 
a, thousand years before that time, so that we may 
call this twentieth century “the Children’s Cen- 
tury.” 

While the Junior Congregation is a new way of 
bringing the children into the Church services and 


THE CHILDREN’S KINGDOM 173 


of teaching them lessons from God’s Word by 
means of story-sermons, sermons to children have 
been preached for many years. I have in my library 
more than fifty books of children’s sermons, most 
of which have been published within the last ten 
‘years, yet four of them are more than twenty-five 
years old, one of them having been published forty 
years ago, and another fifty years ago. 

The fact that more and more of these books are 
published every year, and others which have to do 
with the moral and spiritual training of children, 
shows that the children are beginning to come to 
their own, and that many more persons are begin- 
ning to see that the kingdom of God belongs to 
them. 

The great English preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon, 
who finished his work on earth thirty years ago, did 
a great deal to bring the children into his Church 
in London. He once declared: “I will say broadly 
that I have more confidence in the spiritual life of 
the children that I have received into this Church 
than I have in the spiritual condition of the adults 
thus received. I will even go further than that, and 
say that I have usually found a clearer knowledge 
of the Gospel and a warmer love to Christ in the 
child-converts than in the man-converts. I will 
even astonish you still more by saying that I have 
sometimes met with a deeper spiritual experience in 
children of ten and twelve than I have in certain 
persons of fifty and sixty. It is an old proverb that 
some children are born with beards. Some boys are 


174 THE CHILDREN’S KINGDOM 


little men, and some girls are little old women. You 
cannot measure the lives of any of us by our ages.” 

Mr. Spurgeon himself began to preach when he 
was seventeen years old. What he says above seems 
to show that he believed that the kingdom of heav- 
en belonged to the children. 

Christ wants the children of all lands brought 
into the kingdom, for it belongs to them. 

Almost fifty years ago there was a great famine 
in China. Fathers and mothers were selling their 
children as slaves to buy bread, and many people 
were dying. Little girls from six to seven years old 
were sold for one to two dollars apiece, and those 
from ten to twelve years for three, four and five 
dollars apiece. The missionaries used all their 
money, and all that they could get from their 
friends all over the world, to help save the people 
from starving. 

A little girl, just four years old, was found by 
some of the mission workers up among the hills, al- 
most naked, nearly starved, and all alone, crying 
feebly. No longer able to feed her or to care for 
her, her parents had left her alone among the hills 
to die. She was carried to the mission station where 
she was fed and cared for, and grew into a beautiful 
girl. At the same station there were five or six 
boys who had also been saved from starvation. One 
of these boys took a liking to the little girl. They 
went to school together and both became Christians. 
After they grew up they were married, and both be- 
came Christian workers. 


THE CHILDREN’S KINGDOM = 175 


I will close with the last verse of a hymn called 
“The World Children for Jesus,’ written by Mar- 
garet Coote Brown. She also believes that the king- 
dom of heaven belongs to the children, for she says: 


“And all the dear babies, wherever they grow, 
So cunning, so gracious, so wee, 

Are God’s darling children; and Jesus loves them 
Just as He loves you and me.” 


DE Ei 
THE BURNING BUSH 


“And Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see 
this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.’—Ex. 
shed 


1 " Y HILE Moses was keeping the flocks of his 

father-in-law, he led them to the back of 

the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb, 

called the mountain of God. And there he saw a 

strange sight. He saw a bush on fire, and the bush 
was not burned up. 

And Moses said, “I will turn aside now, and see 
this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” And 
when God saw that Moses turned aside, He called 
unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, 
“Moses, Moses.’”’ And Moses answered, “Here am 
I.” And God said to him: “Draw not nigh hith- 
er: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the 
place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” 

Then God spoke to Moses about His people Is- 
rael, and told him He wanted him to bring them out 
of Egypt, where they were in bondage, and to lead 
them to the promised land, “a land flowing with 
milk and honey.” 

Moses found out why the bush was not burnt, 
although it was on fire. It was because God was 
in the bush, and wanted to talk to Moses. To see 
a bush burning, which no human hand had set on 


176 


THE BURNING BUSH ee, 


fire; to see it keep on burning, although no fuel 
was added to it; this was a picture to Moses of what 
God could do with him. As God was in the little 
bush by the wayside and kept it burning, so would 
God be in Moses and set him on fire to do His work, 
so will He be in every one of us until we burn 
with a desire to do His will. 

The poet has sung: 

“Earth’s crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God; 
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.” 

Do you know that life is full of burning bushes 
in which God wants to talk to us and tell us what 
to do? He had a great work for Moses to do, and 
so He has something for you and me to do. 

As you go to school and study your lessons, you 
will see these burning bushes. Some day your 
heart will burn within you as you see a truth which 
you did not see before, as you understand a lesson 
better than you ever did before, and you will have a 
new interest in your lessons, and a new desire to 
prepare yourself for usefulness in life. You have 
seen a burning bush, and God is talking to you out 
of it. 

Our text is the picture of a great school. God 
Himself is the great teacher. Moses is the scholar. 
The sight Moses sees arouses his interest and atten- 
tion. God teaches Moses a great lesson, prepares 
him for his life-work, and for the next forty years 
Moses does the work of God and the will of God. 

Your school days may seem dull to you, you may 
tire of your lessons, but if you cultivate the interest 


178 THE BURNING BUSH 


and attention and awe and obedience which Moses 
had, you will find the ordinary bushes aflame with 
fire, and you will learn the lessons which will be 
helpful to you in the forty years, or more, of serv- 
ice to which God is calling you. 


It is the great work of a teacher in the public 
school and in the Sunday school to make a com- 
mon bush burn with fire so that God may speak out 
of it to the soul of the pupil. It is easy to teach in 
such a way that every bush remains but an ordinary 
bush, but the real teacher is the one who is able to 
make the bush “afire with God” for you, and God 
will tell you what He wants you to do. 

Many a boy and girl has been helped by the moth- 
er, the father, the teacher, the minister, or some one 
else, to see the burning bush out of which God 
spoke, and so they saw a vision of their life-work, 
and heard the message from God which made them 
good and noble and useful. 

As we read the life-stories of great men and wom- 
en we find that at some time in their childhood 
or their youth they met their burning bush in the 
form of an experience or an influence that helped 
to make them what they became. 

When Abraham Lincoln was only a little over 
nine years old his mother passed away. She called 
her children to her bedside, and laying her hand on 
the boy’s head, she said: “I am going to leave you, 
Abe,—and, oh, how hard it is to part with you. I 
know that you will be a good boy; that you will be 
kind to Sarah and to your father. I want you to 
live as I have taught you, and to love your Heav- 


THE BURNING BUSH 179 


enly Father. I am thankful God gave you to us. 
Love everybody, hinder nobody, never lie, never 
drink, and the world will be glad some day that you 
were born.” 

After he became a man, he said: “All that I am, 
all that I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” 

Surely, his mother was the one who made him 
see the burning bush out of which God spoke to 
him, and God gave him his life-work as surely as 
He did to Moses. It was a great task to deliver 
the Children of Israel out of the bondage of Egyp- 
tian slavery, but with the help of God Moses was 
able to do it. It was also a great task to free the 
colored slaves of our country, but, with the help 
of God, Abraham Lincoln did it. 

The same God is able to help you and me do our 
tasks in life, no matter how hard they may be. 

If you have not yet seen your burning bush, look 
for it, and when you see it, take off your shoes from 
your feet, and come to God in a humble spirit, and 
He will speak to you and will tell you what He 
wants you to do. 


XLII. 
THE WONDERFUL DIPPER 


“And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of 
these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name 
of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall m no 
wise lose his reward.”—Matrr. 10:42. 


T may seem a small thing to give a cup of cold 
] water to a little child, and yet our Saviour says 
that if it is done in the right spirit, it will bring 
a reward. There may be life in a cup of cold water, 
if given to one who is burning up with a fever, or 
to a traveler in the desert who would die without 
it, or to the wounded soldier on the battlefield, or 
even to the sick little child with its parched lips. 


It is said that during one of the battles of the 
Civil War, while the two armies moved back and 
forth against each other, there was a little patch of 
ground between them, which was held now by the 
one side and now by the other. It was covered with 
bodies of the dead and the dying, and all through 
the afternoon the cry was heard, “Water! water!” 
One of the soldiers asked his captain to be allowed 
to answer those piteous cries, but the captain an- 
swered,. “No; it would be certain death.” But the 
soldier could hardly bear to hear those cries, which 
he heard above the roar of artillery and the crack 
of the muskets. Again and again he pleaded with 
the captain to be allowed to go. At last he set out 


180 


THE WONDERFUL DIPPER 181 


with a bucket of water and atin cup. For a while 
the bullets sang around him, but his life was spared 
as he went on his errand of mercy. When the sol- 
diers in blue saw what he wanted.to do they stopped 
firing, and for an hour and a half the soldier in 
gray went about on his errand of mercy. Surely, 
he received his reward! 

The spirit in which the act is done is what gives 
it value, whether it be a small act, like giving a 
cup of cold water to a child, or some act that 1s 
thought to be greater. St. Matthew reports Jesus as 
saying, “In the name of a disciple,” while St. Mark 
gives the text in this form: “For whosoever shall 
give you a cup of water to drink, because ye are 
Christ’s, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise 
lose his reward.” By “these little ones” Jesus may 
have meant His disciples, or He may have had in 
mind little children, one of whom He had just 
taken up in His arms as St. Mark tells the story. 
We may say that a cup of cold water given to any 
one who belongs to Christ, if given in the right 
spirit, shall not lose its reward. 

Where the spirit of Christ is, wonderful things 
may be done. Some years ago three children—a boy 
of ten, a girl of seven, and a girl of four—went 
alone from a town in Germany to a town in Mis- 
souri, in our own country. The father and mother 
had come to America to seek their fortune, leaving 
the children in the care of an aunt in Germany. 
Afterward they sent money to the aunt, and asked 
her to send them to America. She was a good Chris- 
tian woman, and she gave the older girl a New Tes- 


182 THE WONDERFUL DIPPER 


tament, asking her to show it to every person to 
whom she had to appeal for guidance. On the first 
leaf of the New Testament she had written the 
names of the three children, and the fact that their 
father and mother were looking for them in Sedalia, 
Missouri. And below this she wrote the words of 
our text, “And whosoever shall give to drink unto 
one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in 
the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he 
shall in no wise lose his reward.” The children 
could not speak a word of any language but Ger- 
man, but they made the trip of more than four thou- 
sand miles, over sea and land, in perfect safety, and 
reached their parents in their new home. 


I want to tell you a beautiful story, which gave 
me the subject of this sermon. A little girl and her 
mother lived all alone in a little house in the woods. 
They were very happy and contented, but one day 
the mother became very sick, and the little girl was 
very sad. The mother said, as she lay there suffer- 
ing from weakness and from thirst, “I must have a 
drink of clear, cold water.’’ The night was dark, 
and the spring was far away, and they had no one 
to send for the water. The little girl took her tin 
dipper and started out alone through the woods to 
fetch her mother a drink. She ran on and on, and 
when she reached the spring she was very tired; but 
she filled her tin dipper and started home. As 
she went on through the dark, all at once she felt a 
warm touch upon her hand, and she stopped. It 
was a little dog who was nearly dying of thirst, and 
he touched her hand with his hot tongue. There 


THE WONDERFUL DIPPER 183 


was not much water in the dipper, for she had spilled 
some of it as she went along, but she poured a little 
of it into her hand and let him drink it. Then a 
wonderful thing happened,—the tin dipper was 
changed into a silver one, with more water in it 
than before. 

She started on again, hurrying very fast, for she 
was anxious to give ‘her mother the water which 
she so much needed. But she had not gone very 
far when she met a stranger in the road, who 
reached out his hand, and begged for a drink of 
the clear, cold water. Her mother had told her 
that she should always be kind to a stranger, so 
she held the dipper up to his lips that he might 
drink. But as the stranger drank, the silver dipper 
was changed into a golden dipper, full to the brim 
with sparkling water! 

The little girl hurried on, but the road was so 
long and she was so tired, that it seemed as if she 
would never reach home. She was weak and faint 
and very thirsty, and she longed to drink just a few 
drops of the water, but she denied herself for her 
mother’s sake. At last she reached home, and as 
soon as her mother drank the water she became well 
and strong again, and as the golden dipper touched 
her lips it was changed to a diamond dipper. And 
the diamond dipper left her fingers to shine up in 
the sky, and there in the northern sky it shines 
every night to tell all little children how once a 
child was brave and unselfish and kind. 


PISTTL 
HALLOWEEN 


“To all the saints in Christ Jesus.’—Puuiu. 1:1. 


HE first of November is known as All Saints’ 
a Day. Long ago it was called Allhallows 

Day, and sometimes Hallowmass. The Ro- 
man Catholic Church celebrates the second day of 
November as All Souls’ Day. 

In France, where this day is called Day of the 
Dead, they have a beautiful custom somewhat like 
our Memorial Day. For several weeks before the 
day arrives the shop windows are full of beautiful 
wreaths made of small straw flowers, called “ever- 
lasting flowers,” some in their natural color, and 
some dyed blue, pink, or purple. These wreaths 
are bought by the people and taken to the ceme- 
teries on All Saints’ Day and placed on the graves 
of their friends and loved ones, and even on the 
graves of the poor and unknown who have no 
friends to attend to this matter, and on All Souls’ 
Day the cemeteries look very beautiful, as they do 
in our country on Memorial Day. 


The children also take small wreaths and lay 
them upon the grave of a little brother, or sister, 
or friend. Our own poet, Henry W. Longfellow, 
has written in one of his poems: 


“There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
But one dead lamb is there; 

There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended, 
But has one vacant chair.” 


184 


— 


HALLOWE’EN 185 


Other Roman Catholic countries also celebrate 
All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, but in our 
country these days do not receive much attention, 
except by some Churches. 

The way All Saints’ Day came into the Church 
calendar is interesting. Hundreds of years ago, the 
leaders of the Christian Church named each of the 
days of the year after a saint. This went on until 
the time of Pope Boniface [V, who was pope from 
608 to 615 A.D. He found that the days were all 
taken up by the many saints, but that there were 
many more saints left. He, therefore, selected No- 
vember first and called it All Saints’ Day in honor 
of all the saints who were not named on special 
days. | 
This Pope also received from the Roman emperor 
a temple which had been called the Pantheon. This 
temple was finished twenty-seven years before Je- 
sus was born. It was large and. beautiful, and was 
called the Pantheon in honor of all the gods who 
were worshiped by these heathen people. It is hard- 
ly necessary to tell you that as soon as Pope Boni- 
face IV received this temple from the emperor he 
changed it into a Christian Church, and dedicated it 
to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and to all the saints 
and martyrs. It was in this Church that All Saints’ 
Day had its beginning. 

But what has all this to do with Hallowe’en? A 
great deal, as you shall see. Hallowe’en, or All- 
hallows Eve, as it was sometimes called, is the 
evening before All Saints’ Day, as Christmas Eve is 
the evening before Christmas Day. 


186 HALLOW L’EN 


You may wonder why Hallowe’en, which means 
“holy evening,” should be celebrated in such an un- 
holy way, with noise and masks and all kinds of 
costumes. ; 

At first it was a heathen festival, and it was cel- 
ebrated by the lighting of bonfires on the hilltops 
to keep off evil spirits, which were supposed to be 
wandering about that night. Hallowe’en was the 
one night of all nights in the year when ghosts and 
witches and fairies, all spirits, good and bad, were 
thought to be on the earth and to visit the homes of 
the people and to play tricks and to have a good 
time. 

At first when Hallowe’en became a Christian 
festival, some of the Christians celebrated it in a 
Christian way by holding religious services, but 
some of the people celebrated it in a pagan way, 
and now, hundreds of years afterward, we still have 
the Christian name and the pagan celebration. Per- 
sons dress in all kinds of costumes, representing 
good and evil spirits, fairies and witches, animals 
and devils, and, in some sections, tricks are played 
upon persons who are disliked. 

There are many games that may be played at 
Hallowe’en parties, among which are cracking nuts, 
bobbing for apples, eating doughnuts, hunting coins 
hidden in a pan of flour, and so on. 

Instead of bobbing for apples, or diving for 
apples afloat in a tub of water, which often gets the 
clothes and the carpet wet, a good game may be 
played by stretching a stout string or line across the 
room, to which apples are hung tied to small 


HALLOW HL’ EN 187 


strings, and then the boys and girls see which one 
can get the first bite out of the swinging fruit, with- 
out using the hands; or the game may be prolonged 
to see which one of the party can first eat a whole 
apple in this way. 

Sometimes Hallowe’en tricks may result in harm 
or injury, as is seen from the following story: “One 
Hallowe’en a boy rang a drugstore bell. The clerk 
came down and opened the door. All he saw was a 
pumpkin with holes for eyes, nose, mouth and ears, 
through which a candle was shining. The boys had 
a good laugh and meant no harm. They were not 
bad, only wanted some fun. The clerk was mad and 
thought the boys were bad. When the boy who rang 
the bell went home he saw the doctor’s horse at the 
gate. He ran in and found baby sister very sick. 
The doctor said, ‘Peter, run as fast as you can and 
get this medicine.’ He rang and rang the bell, but 
the clerk did not come down. The next morning 
there was crape on the door of the baby’s home.” 


XLIV. 
THE GOMDENGR WE 


“All things therefore whatsoever ye would that 
men Should do unto you, even so do ye also unto 
them: for this 1s the law and the prophets.’—Matr. 
Ante) 


), YHEN I was a boy we were taught the Gold- 
en Rule in this short form: ‘Do to others 

as you would that they should do to you.” 

But it is one thing to know the Golden Rule and 
another thing to do it. If all the men and women 


and children in the world would live by this rule we 
should have heaven on the earth. 


More than five hundred years before Christ was 
born, a heathen teacher had said: “What you do 
not like when done to yourself do not do to others.” 
But this is not the Golden Rule. This means that 
if you see a man in the gutter you must not step 
on his neck, because you would not like him to step 
on your neck if you were lying in the gutter. But 
the Golden Rule means that you should lift him up 
out of the gutter and bind up his wounds, because 
that is what you would want him to do for you if 
you were hurt and lying in the gutter. 

The great trouble with the world is that too many 
persons are living according to a rule something like 
this: Do to the other fellow what he wants to do 
to you, but do it first. This is the rule of selfish- 


188 


THE GOLDEN RULE 189 


ness, while the Golden Rule is the rule of love. In 
another place (Matthew 22:39), Jesus put it in 
this form: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self.” 

The Golden Rule is to be the rule of life not only 
for men and women, but also for boys and girls. 
You are to live according to this rule every day, and 
by and by it will be as natural for you to do what 
this rule requires as it is to eat and sleep and play. 

There are many rules which we have to keep in 
life, no matter where we go or what we try to do. 
If you go down the street and meet people, the 
rule is to turn to the right as you pass them. When 
you get to the crossing a policeman will tell you 
to pass over or to stop until the automobiles are 


gone. If you want to enter a large department store, 
you will see on one door the word “In” and on an- 
other the word “Out.” If you attend school, you 
will find that there are a number of rules that you 
must observe. Even when you play, every game 
has its rules. 

One day a boy came home from school and he 
said to his mother: ‘‘Mother, the teacher read out 
such a lot of rules we have to keep, I am sure I 
shall never remember them all.” — 

Did you ever think of the fact that most of the 
laws and rules that have to be made are caused by 
the people who do not want to do right? If all the 
people did what was right very few laws would be 
necessary. But in the Golden Rule Jesus gives us a 
simple direction by which we can be pretty sure to do 


190 THE GOLDEN RULE 


the right thing if we want to. The simplest things, 
however, are not always the easiest. 

The place where you must begin to practice the 
Golden Rule is in the home, and you will find that 
this is in some respects the hardest place to do it. 
There is so much selfishness in some homes that the 
practice of the Golden Rule will change the whole 
life of the family and will bring much greater happi- 
ness. 

If your father or your mother want you to do 
something for them when you want to play, do not 
say that you would rather not do it, but think of 
the Golden Rule, and do what you would like them 
to do for you if you were the father or mother and 
they were the boy or girl. 

Make it your rule to do to your brother or sister 
what you would like them to do to you if you were 
in their place and they in yours. By doing this reg- . 
ularly you will soon make a change in your home, 
and you will find that you will not only make the 
others much happier, but you will be a great deal 
happier yourself. Where the Golden Rule is prac- 
ticed there is no strife, no quarreling, no hatred, no 
envy, but peace and harmony and happiness will 
prevail. 

If you practice the Golden Rule in the school, 
you will soon find a change in the teacher and the 
other pupils. If you treat the teacher as you would 
like to be treated if you were in her place, you will 
be on much better terms with her and will get a 
great deal more out of your lessons. If your treat- 
ment of the other scholars, whether in the school 


THE GOLDEN RULE 191 


room or on the playground, will be according to the 
Golden Rule you will find that you will soon be a 
leader among them and they will catch your spirit 
and will do to you as they want you to do to them 
and as you have been trying to do to them. 


Even in the Sunday school this rule is not kept 
as it ought to be, and a great change can be brought 
about in the class and in the whole Sunday school 
if teachers and scholars will live according to the 
Golden Rule, and surely there if anywhere should 
this rule of the Master be kept. 

If men were to live according to the Golden Rule 
in business, in labor, in politics, in religion, in ev- 
erything, this old world would soon be turned into a 
paradise, and dishonesty, graft, strikes, hypocrisy, 
and warfare would cease, and the will of God would 
be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Which 
of you, my juniors, will be the first to practice the 
Golden Rule? After you have tried it a year, let 
me know how it works. 

When the great general, Napoleon, with his com- 
panions, was climbing the steep defile of St. Helena 
they met a peasant boy with a load of fagots on 
his head. One of the officers motioned to the boy 
to step aside. Napoleon scolded the officer and 
said: “Respect the burden! Respect the burden!” 
Napoleon had been himself a peasant boy, and he 
wished to do to a burden-bearer that which he had 
asked others to do for him when as a child he 
carried his bundle of fagots down the mountain- 
side. 


HN anya 
REVELATION TO CHILDREN 


“At that season Jesus answered and said, I thank 
Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that 
Thou didst hide these things from the wise and un- 
derstanding, and didst reveal them unto babes.”— 
Marr, 11:25. 


VER the door to a classroom in a university 
() town of Europe is a motto in Latin words 

which means, “God shows Himself to be 
greatest in the things that are least.” 

Jesus was fond of telling us how God loved the 
little things, such as the lilies of the field, the birds 
of the air, and the little children. Jesus Himself 
called to Him a little child and set him in the midst 
of His disciples and said unto them, “Except ye 
turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no 
wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” 

In our text Jesus speaks of the revelation which 
God makes to children, and even unto babes, a reve- 
lation which He hides from the wise and under- 
standing. The word “reveal” means “to uncover,” 
or “to make known,” and Jesus means to say that 
God makes known to children some things which 
grown up people cannot understand, even some that 
are wise and learned. 


When the world was looking for the coming of 
Christ, they looked for Him among the great things 


192 


REVELATION TO CHILDREN 193 


of earth. They thought He would come with the 
power and the show of an earthly king. But when 
He came, it was in the form of a little child,—a baby 
poor and weak, born in a stable and laid in a man- 
ger. 

Just now there are a great many persons who 
look for the coming of Christ in the clouds of heav- 
en, and they look in vain. If they want to see Him 
coming they must look into the faces of the little 
children that are born into the world, for in them 
they shall see more of Christ than the clouds will 
ever reveal, and it is in these children that the 
future destiny of His Kingdom upon earth lies. 

Little children know more and understand more 
than many people think. God reveals to them things 
which He hides from older ones, just because these 
little ones are so simple, so trustful and so affec- 
tionate. 

A great English earl once went with a pious friend 
to hear a noted preacher. The sermon was about 
the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believ- 
ers. As they were coming out of the Church, the 
great statesman said to his friend that he could not 
understand it all, and asked him if he thought that 
anyone in the Church could. ‘Why yes,” said he, 
“there were many plain unlettered women, and some 
children there, who understood every word of it, 
and heard it with joy.” 

While children are natural—that is, before they 
are spoiled by a certain kind of training—they are 
more ready to receive the revelation God wants to 
give them than afterward. After they grow up, they 


194 REVELATION TO CHILDREN 


think they ought to grow very wise and be slow to 
believe and quick to question, and therefore God 
cannot make known to them all that He would like 
them to know and to believe. God can reveal to 
humble souls that which is hidden from those who 
are too clever. 

That is why the scribes and the Pharisees could not 
understand Jesus, and why the common people heard 
Him gladly. The scribes and the Pharisees thought 
they knew more than Jesus did, and He revealed His 
greatest truths to the simple people and to the chil- 
dren. “To such belongeth the kingdom of heaven.” 

There was once a little Scotch girl who had come 
to this country, but had been raised in the Church 
in her home-land. The village in which she lived 
was on fire with a great revival that was going on at 
the time. A special preacher had come to conduct 
the revival services, and he was stopping at the 
house where the little Scotch girl sewed. One after- 
noon he met her in the yard, and seeing her at work 
he asked her, “Mary, have you found Jesus?” Her 
eyes opened wide, her armful of kindling wood 
dropped to the ground, her lips parted in great sur- 
prise as she quickly said, in her broad Scotch way, 
“Why, I dinna ken that I had lost Him.” (“Why, 
I didn’t know that I had lost Him.’’) 

I read of a little girl who lived with her grand- 
parents.. Some one said of her: “She is a good 
child, learns well, prays well, and obeys well.” Her 
grandfather said she taught him solemn lessons. She 
never went to bed without first kneeling down and 
praying. One evening she went to bed very late. 


REVELATION TO CHILDREN 195 


The family thought she might neglect her prayers on 
account of the lateness of the hour and because she 
was so tired. But she said: “We must pray be- 
fore we go to sleep.” At her request they all knelt 
down, and she prayed the prayers taught her. The 
old grandfather followed her in another evening 
prayer. Afterward he said, with tears in his eyes, 
“This child has taught us a solemn lesson.” And 
so has many a good child taught its parents and 
teachers. 

Dr. Henry Harbaugh, one of our Church Fathers, 
wrote a very beautiful poem in memory of his moth- 
er, more than sixty years ago. I will quote two 
verses of the poem as a fitting close to this sermon: 


“Think not that I forget, mother, 
When I was very wee, 
I looked into your eyes, mother, 
While sitting on your knee; 
And holding fast your ear and hair, 
I would not let you rise; 
And you were glad to be detained— 
My whim you did surmise! 
Myself to view, 
And babble to 
The baby in your eyes. 


* kx xx * * * * x * 


“You've read to me the words, mother, 
Of Him, the meek and mild, 
How he who enters heaven, mother, 
Must first become a child! 
O! when the power of that bright world 
My childhood glorifies, 
I’ll know you there, as I do here, 
My mother in the skies! 
Then shall I see 
Eternally, 
An angel in your eyes.” 


MEV EL 
ALONE AE PTERY TO. CHE DRn 


“My children, let us not love in word, neither with 
the tongue; but in deed and truth.’—I JouHN 3:18. 


ETTER-WRITING is a wonderful thing. 
ip How proud you were when you wrote your 

first letter. How happy you ought to be 
that you can write letters. How faithful you ought 
to be in writing letters to your friends. Our text 
is taken from what we may call “a love letter to 
children.” It was written by John, one of the twelve 
disciples of Jesus, who is often called “the apostle 
of love.” He laid his head on Jesus’ breast when 
they reclined at their meals. He seems to have 
caught more of the spirit of Jesus than any one 
else, and that is the spirit of love. 

In his gospel John calls himself three times “the 
disciple whom Jesus loved,” and we all know that 
he loved Jesus. Besides his gospel, John wrote three 
letters, which are called “epistles,” and the book of 
Revelation. It is the first of his three epistles that 
I call “a love letter to children,” and if you will read 
it through, I think you will say that I gave it the 
right name. Just before I began to write this ser- 
mon I read this epistle through twice so that I might 
be sure to know what I was talking about. In this 
letter of five chapters and one hundred and five 
verses, John uses the word “love” fifty-two times, 


196 


LOVE LETTER TO CHILDREN 19% 


which is about half as often as there are verses in 
the whole letter. We may therefore say that it is 
“a love-letter.” He writes many beautiful things 
about love, and the most beautiful of all is that 
“God is love.” John tells us twice that “God is 
love,” and every boy and girl ought to know where 
this saying is found. If I tell you the verses are 
I John 4:8 and 16, you may remember them, or you 
may not; but if I give you the key which some one 
has worked out, it may help you to remember bet- 
ter. He says: “Can you remember where to find 
that text? Very easy. Comes twice in John’s first 
Epistle, both times in fourth chapter, once in eighth, 
and once in sixteenth verse. Can’t forget it if you 
know your two tables. 

“Twice one-is two, twice two is four, twice four 
is eight, twice eight is sixteen.” 

In the five chapters of this love letter John writes 
nine times: “My little children.” He uses the word 
“Beloved” a number of times, and also “‘brethren,”’ 
but “my little children,” is used oftener than any 
other expression. It is for this reason that I call 
this epistle “a love letter to children.” John was a 
very loving man, and sometimes when he says, “My 
little children,” he may mean men and women as 
well as children. But I am sure he meant real 
children in some of his sayings. In the second chap- 
ter he says, “I write unto you, fathers,” and “I write 
unto you, young men,” and I believe he means what 
he says. Therefore, when he says “I write unto you, 
my little children,” I believe he means what he says. 
I wish I could take up all of the nine verses in which 


198 LOVE LETTER TO CHILDREN 


he says “my little children,” and tell you what he 
means in each case, but that would make too long a 
sermon; therefore I must be satisfied to speak of 
the verse I have taken for our text: “My little chil- 
dren, let us not love in word, neither with the 
tongue; but in deed and truth.” 

Love best shows itself in living and in giving, 
far more than in talking. It is easy to say, “I love 
you,” but the words are not enough. Love must be 
proven by actions and by life. It is easy to say 
“God is love,’ or “God loves the world;’ but 
when one can say, as Jesus did: “For God so loved 
the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” 
then we know that God really loves the world be- 
cause He made the greatest sacrifice for it. Be- 
cause Jesus laid down His life for us we know that 
He really loves us. 

There comes to us a true story from Scotland 
about a boy, thirteen years old, who was a real hero 
and had the right kind of love in his heart. He 
and six companions were out in a boat, and it was 
upset some distance from the shore. This boy was 
the only one of the seven who could swim. While 
the other boys clung to the bottom of the boat he 
swam back and forth between the boat and the 
shore, taking one with him each time, till he saved 
five in this way. He was then very tired and al- 
most played out, but there was one still left holding 
on to the boat, so he plunged in again to try to save 
him. But he was so much exhausted that he sank 
before he could get to him. The sixth one was saved 
by some men who happened to come by, so that the 


LOVE LETTER TO CHILDREN 199 


little hero was the only one drowned. This boy 
might have said to the other boys, “I love you,” 
or “I am sorry for you,” and then swam ashore 
and saved himself, but he showed that he loved in 
deed and in truth, and proved what Jesus said: 
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
lay down his life for his friends.” 

How much do you love your mother? How do 
you prove your love for her? I came across a 
poem which is a sermon in itself, and I want to 
give it to you, in the hope that you will learn its les- 
son: 


“T love you, mother,” said little John; 
But, forgetting his work, his cap went on, 
And off he ran to the garden swing, 
And left her the water and wood to bring. 


“T love you, mother,” said rosy Nell, 

“T love you more than tongue can tell;” 
Then she teased and pouted full half a day, 
Till mother was glad when she went to play. 


“T love you, mother,” said little Fan; 
“Today I will help you all I can; 

How glad I am that school don’t keep;” 
So she rocked the babe till it fell asleep. 


Then, stepping softly, she brought the broom, 
And swept the floor and tidied the room; 
Busy and happy all day was she, 

Busy and happy as child could be. 


“I love you, mother,” again they said, 
Three little children going to bed; 

How do you think that mother guessed 
Which of the children loved her best? 


XLVII. 
A THANKSGIVING SANDWICH 
“In everything give thanks.’—I THEss. 5:18. 


N three little verses in his first letter to the Thes- 
| salonians, St. Paul gives us what may be 
called a Thanksgiving Sandwich. You know a 
sandwich is made up of three pieces: bread on one 
side, bread on the other side, and meat in the middle. 
On one side St. Paul puts verse sixteen, “Rejoice 
always;” on the other side he puts verse eighteen, 
“In everything give thanks;” and in the middle he 
puts verse seventeen, “Pray without ceasing.”’ And 
then he gives the reason for it: “For this is the will 
of God in Christ Jesus to youward.”’ 

On one side of our sandwich is joy; on the other 
side is thanksgiving; and in the middle is prayer. 
And this is right, because thanksgiving ts a joyful 
prayer. The bread in our Thanksgiving sandwich 
is joy and thanksgiving, and the meat is prayer. 

Joy is something we have in ourselves ; thanksgiv- 
ing is something we give to others; and prayer is 
something we offer to God. 

If we want to do as St. Paul says, “Rejoice al- 
ways,” we must cultivate the joyful habit. 

A little girl was once tearing her doll to pieces. 
Her mother asked her what she was doing, and 
she answered: “Papa says there is a grain of com- 
fort in everything, and I am looking for it.” She 


200 


THANKSGIVING SANDWICH 201 


had the right idea, but was making a wrong use of 
i 

I think the old lady of whom I read had a better 
way of finding comfort and joy in everything. 
She had a great many troubles and worries, but her 
face was so sweet and happy that everybody liked 
to look at it. One day a fretful woman came to 
her and asked how it was she always seemed so 
happy. She told her fretful friend that the secret 
of her happiness was that she kept a Pleasure Book. 
Every evening for years and years she had written 
- down in this book something nice that happened to 
her that day. And there wasn’t a day that she didn’t 
find something to write in the book. She had formed 
the joyful habit, she had found a grain of comfort 
in everything, and she was able to “rejoice al- 
ways.” 

If you, boys and girls, want to get the most joy 
out of life, you must start early to form the joyful 
habit. The more you grumble and complain about 
things, the more you will find to grumble and 
complain about; the more you look for the grain of 
comfort in everything and reasons for joy and 
thankfulness, the more you will find to rejoice about 
and to be thankful for. 

The way the corners of your mouth are turned 
has a great deal to do with the joy of life. If 
you feel like grumbling, pouting or frowning, just 
glance into the mirror and you will find the corners 
of your mouth turned down. But if you feel cheer- 
ful and happy and are counting your blessings, just 


202 THANKSGIVING SANDWICH 


glance into the mirror and you will find the corners 
of your mouth turned up. 

Thanksgiving also is a habit that must be culti- 
vated. St. Paul says: “In everything give thanks.” 
If ever there was a man who had reason to com- 
plain and to feel blue, it was St. Paul. He had 
much suffering and many troubles in life. He wrote 
some of his most beautiful letters while in prison. 
He writes more than forty times in his letters about 
giving thanks. He had learned to give thanks in 
everything, and he always found something to be 
thankful for. 

Two of the things which most parents teach their 
children to say, as soon as they learn to talk are, 
“Please” and “Thank you.’ But it is not enough 
to say “Thank you” with the lips; it must come 
from the heart. 

It pays to be polite. Some years ago a lady 
was coming out of a building when the heavy door 
swung back so that she could not get out. A boy 
from the street sprang forward and held the door 
open for her, and as she passed out she smiled on 
him and said, “Thank you.” “Did you hear that?” 
said the boy to a small companion. “Hear what?” 
he asked. “She said ‘Thank yow’ to the likes o’ me.” 
The lady was much amused. ‘Why, it always pays 
to be polite,” she said, and thought no more about 
it. Some years later the same lady was doing her 
Christmas shopping, when she was treated very 
kindly by one of the floor-walkers in the store. She 
thanked him for his courtesy, when he said: “Pardon 
me, madam, but you gave me my first lesson in 


THANKSGIVING SANDWICH = 203 


politeness.” He explained to her that he was the 
boy who had held open the door for her years be- 
fore and that her courteous “Thank you” had given 
him the ambition to do something in the world. 
The very next day he had gone and offered him- 
self as messenger boy in the very store in which he 
now held a position of trust, which his politeness 
had helped him to win. 

We are to be thankful to others when they do 
us a kindness or favor, but especially to God, Who 
is the Giver of every good and perfect gift. We are 
to give thanks in everything, because God is able 
to make all things work together for our good. 

But the most important part of our message is, 
“Pray without ceasing.” This does not mean that 
we must always be saying prayers, but that we 
should at all times have a prayerful spirit. 

There are times when we should talk to God as 
to our dearest Friend, but whenever we feel the 
nearness of God and put our trust in Him we are 
in a prayerful spirit. 

Every boy and girl ought to learn some little pray- 
ers to say at the table and when they go to bed, but 
every boy and girl ought early to learn to talk to 
God for themselves as they talk to their own moth- 
ers. Prayer is the key with which to open the door 
of every day in the morning and to lock it at night. 

Joy and thanksgiving and prayer belong together. 
They are all necessary to make a Thanksgiving sand- 
wich. Let us be sure that we not only ask things of 
God in prayer, but that we also thank Him joyfully 
for all His blessings. 


204 THANKSGIVING SANDWICH 


There is a legend which tells us that two angels 
were sent down from heaven with two large baskets. 
The one angel was to gather into his basket the de- 
sires of men to bring them back to God, while the 
other angel was to gather into his basket all their 
thanksgivings. It is said that the first angel soon 
had his basket full to overflowing, while the basket 
of the second angel was almost empty. “In every- 
thing give thanks.” 

I hope you will all enjoy many good things on 
Thanksgiving Day, but I hope you will have Thanks- 
giving sandwich every day. 


XLVIUTI. 
PAINTING YOUR BESTsPICIURE 


“A word fitly spoken ts like apples of gold in pic- 
tures of silver.” (A. V.)—PRov. 25:11. 


WO months ago, when I gave you a sermon 
on “Hidden Pictures,’ I told you that the 
word “pictures,” while found three times in 

the Authorized Version of the Bible, is translated 
differently in each case in the American Revised 
Version, from which I always like to take my texts. 
At that time I used the text in Numbers 33:52, 
where God said to the children of Israel, “And de- 
stroy all their pictures ;’ but which is translated in 
the A. R. V., “And destroy all their figured stones.” 
Another text is in Isaiah 2:16, where the A. V. 
reads “all pleasant ENGL as Pee bait the BF SN Sak 
has “all pleasant imagery.” 

But the most interesting of the three texts, and I 
think the most beautiful, also, is the one I have 
selected for our sermon today: “A word fitly 
spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” 
This text is translated in the A. R. V. in the form of 
poetry, as follows: 

“A word fitly spoken 

Is like apples of gold in network of silver.” 

A great Hebrew scholar, whom I heard lecture at 
a summer school a number of years ago, thinks the 
best way to translate it is like this: 


205 


206 YOUR BEST PICTURE 


“Like graved work of gold and carved work 
of silver 
Is a word fitly spoken.” 

But ‘“‘graved work” is a kind of picture only that 
the artist uses a chisel or a sharp instrument instead 
of a brush. 

You remember the great painter about whom | 
told you in another sermon. One day a friend of 
his asked him which of all his paintings he thought 
his best. The painter took him to the other end 
of the room and showed him a large piece of white 
canvas stretched in a beautiful frame, and said: 
“That is my best work.” 

Every boy and girl is an artist, and your best pic- 
ture is not yet painted. Your life is much like a white 
canvas upon which you will paint the picture that is 
to be. Life’s best is before you and some day you 
will finish your best picture. One of our Ameri- 
can poets has written: 


“Life is a sheet of paper white, 
Whereon each one of us may write 

His word or two, and then comes night; 
Though thou have time 

But for a line—be that sublime; 

Not failure, but low aim is crime.” 


That you may be able to paint your best picture 
I must tell you a story which was printed some 
years ago in “Zion’s Herald,’ but I will tell it in 
my own way. 

A man who had traveled a great deal was visiting 
in the home of his sister. One day he found two 
of his nieces painting flowers. He looked at their 
pictures a moment and then he asked them, “How 


YOUR BEST PICTURE 207 


would you like to paint bottles as the Chinese paint 
them?” The girls both shouted, “Do tell us about 
the bottles.” Their uncle told them to wait until 
he went up to his trunk, and when he came down 
he held in his hand a little bottle about three inches 
long, beautifully painted. As the girls examined 
the bottle, one of them exclaimed, “And what a lot 
of painting to go on such a little bottle.” 

“In the bottle,” corrected their uncle. “That was 
all painted on the inside of the bottle, and I saw the 
artist doing it myself.” Then he went on to explain 
how it was done. There is only one place in the 
world where they do this, a certain town in China. 
The artists are in a room that has no side windows, 
but is lighted by glass overhead. They lie on their 
backs, on a mass of green branches, and hold these 
little bottles up toward the light. The neck of the 
bottle is very narrow and the opening very smail, 
but with a tiny brush, which is slightly curved at the 
end, the artist manages to paint the bottle on the 
inside. 

From this story you may learn how to paint your 
best picture. It must be painted on the inside. Your 
face will show the kind of picture you are painting. 
If the picture is beautiful, the face will be beau- 
tiful ; if the picture is not beautiful, the face will be 
ugly. In the last verse of the sixth chapter of the 
Acts you read about Stephen: ‘And all that sat in 
the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his 
face as it had been the face of an angel.” Stephen 
had painted a beautiful picture on his soul, and 
his face was beautiful. Like the Chinese bottle- 


208 YOUR BEST PICTURE 


painters, you must lie on your back (humble your- 
self before God) hold yourself up toward the light 
that shines from Christ, and with a brush made of 
your thoughts, your words, and your actions, you 
must paint your picture on the inside, and the fin- 
ished picture will be your character, which will shine 
out in your face and in your conduct. After all, the 
writer of the book of Proverbs is right, ““A word fit- 
ly spoken” is like a picture. Back of the word is 
the thought; ahead of the word is the deed; and all 
these taken together reveal your character, the kind 
of picture you are painting. 

Some time ago, when thinking about our text, I 
sat down and wrote this little poem: 


The wise man centuries ago 

Wrote proverbs every one should know; 
Like father to a son speaks he 

In tender words to you and me. 


And as we write upon our hearts 
The words of wisdom he imparts, 
They are translated into life 
And character, with virtues rife. 


Words fitly spoken, well prepared, 
To golden apples are compared, 

That are in silver network shrined, 
And influence the heart and mind. 


It is such words that we would speak, 
Such golden apples we would seek 

In silver network so to frame, 

That they may grace the halls of fame. 


But, like the wise man long ago, 

We need the Spirit’s help, to know 

What words to speak, what songs to sing, 
That blessings to the world may bring. 


EI e ae 
THE BLESSING OF FRIENDSHIP 


“The soul of Jonathan was kmt with the soul of 
David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’— 
AD SAM. LSt!: 


RUE friendship is one of the greatest bless- 
ings of life. It is the power which binds 
hearts together. Even children have their 

friendships. One of the best friends any boy or 
girl can have is mother. Of course, the best Friend 
in all the world is Christ, who is ‘‘a friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother.” One of the most 
beautiful stories in the Old Testament is the story 
of the friendship between David and Jonathan. 
By studying this story we can understand the work- 
ings of friendship better. 

Friendship may be said to be like a rainbow. which 
is the bridge that binds heaven and earth together. 
As the rainbow has its seven colors,—violet, indigo, 
blue, green, yellow, orange, red,—so friendship 
has its seven elements, all of which may be seen in 
the friendship of David and Jonathan. 

The first element of friendship is Jove. There can 
_ be no real friendship without love. Jonathan was a 
true friend to David because, as we read in our text, 
“the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of 
David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” A 
friend will, if necessary, risk his own life for one 


209 


210 BLESSING OF FRIENDSHIP 


he loves. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man 
than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends.” 

A boy and a girl were playing together in a cer- 
tain town, when the cry was heard, “A mad dog! 
a mad dog!” The boy saw the dog coming directly 
towards him; but instead of running away, he took 
off his coat, and wrapping it round his arm, boldly 
faced the dog, holding out his arm covered with the 
coat. The dog flew at his arm, worrying over it, 
and trying to bite through it, till men came up and 
killed him. One of the men asked the boy, “Why 
didn’t you run away from the dog, my little man?” 
He answered, “I could easily have done that, but if 
I had, the dog would have bit my sister.” He was 
a loving friend and brother. 

Another element of friendship is unselfishness. 
Nothing will kill friendship as quickly as selfishness. 
Jonathan was a friend to David even though he knew 
it would cost him his kingdom. “And Jonathan 
stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and 
gave it to David, and his apparel, even to his sword, 
and to his bow, and to his girdle.” At the risk of 
his own life Jonathan tried to soften the jealousy 
of Saul, his father, toward David. 


One time the great English painter, Turner, was 
on'a committee to arrange the hanging of pictures 
which were to be exhibited in London. At the last 
moment, when all the walls were full, a picture by — 
an unknown girl came in. Turner said, “This is a 
good picture. It must be hung.” But the other 
members of the committee replied, “That is impos- 


BLESSING OF FRIENDSHIP 211 


sible. There is no room for it.’ Very quietly 
Turner said, “I will arrange it.” And he took down 
one of his own pictures and hung the new one in its 
place. 

A third element of friendship is kindness. King 
Saul spoke to Jonathan, his son, and to all his serv- 
ants that they should slay David. And Jonathan 
spake well of David unto Saul his father, and told 
him that he should not sin against David because 
David had not sinned against him, but had done a 
great work for Israel when he took his own life in 
his hand and slew the mighty giant Goliath. In this 
way Jonathan turned the anger of Saul away from 
David for a time. 

Another element of friendship is sincerity. You 
can have true friendship only between true persons. 
Both David and Jonathan were noble in character 
and sincere in their friendship. There can be no 
lasting friendship between bad men. 

A fifth element of friendship is fatthfulness. 
Jonathan was David’s friend when he needed a 
friend most, when he was in trouble and distress. 
When Jonathan found that his father was de- 
termined to put David to death, he helped him to 
escape and saved his life. 

During one of our Indian wars, Colonel Byrd, 
of Virginia, fell into the hands of the Cherokee In- 
dians. He was condemned to death, and was led out 
to execution. One of the chiefs in that tribe had 
been the colonel’s friend. As the warriors came 
forth to put the colonel to death, this chief came 
and stood before him and said, “This man is my 


212 BLESSING OF FRIENDSHIP 


friend. Before you can get at him, you must kill 
me.” He saved his life, and proved that he was a 
faithful friend indeed. | 

Another element of friendship is sacredness. Da- 
vid and Jonathan made a covenant in the name of 
Jehovah, the God of Israel. Their friendship was 
sacred. 

The last element of friendship to which I will 
refer is permanence. True friendship is not changed 
by wealth, separation or death. Saul and his sons 
were slain by the Philistines. David grieved for 
his dear friend Jonathan. He sang a dirge over Saul 
and Jonathan called, “The Song of the Bow,” in 
which he says: 


“IT am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; 
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me; 

Thy love to me was wonderful, 

Passing the love of women.” 


After David became king of Israel and Judah, he 
asked, “Is there yet any that is left of the house of 
Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s 
sake?” He found that there was a son of Jonathan 
living, who was lame in both feet. David com- 
manded that a large tract of land should be set apart 
for this cripple, whose name was Mephibosheth, 
and that he should eat at the king’s table all the re- 
mainder of his life, as he said, at will surely show 
thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake.” 


“Remember well, and bear in mind, 
A faithful friend is hard to find. 
And if you find one kind and true, 
Change not the old one for the new.” 


Y 
POLCEOWINGIHE STAR 


“We saw his star in the east, and are come to 
worship him.’—Matt. 2:2. 


NE of our poets once said, “Hitch your 

() wagon to a star.” That is what the Wise 

Men did, but their wagons were camels, 

upon which they came from a far country, following 

the star which led them on and on until they came 
to Jerusalem. 

We do not know as much about these Wise Men 
as we would like to know. In the margin of the 
American Revised Version they are called “Magi.” 
We will use that name, because it is shorter, and 
we will not forget that it means the same as the 
Wise Men. 

These Magi were men who studied the stars. 
They had high towers into which they went that 
they might see the stars more clearly and might 
study them better. 

They had heard from some of the Jews who were 
living in their country about the great Messiah who 
was to come and conquer all the world. They 
watched the heavens to see whether they could find 
any sign of some great event that was going to take 
place. One night they saw a bright new star shin- 
ing in the sky in the direction of Judaea, and they 
thought this must be the sign that the great King 
was born. 


213 


214 FOLLOWING THE STAR 


They hitched their camels to the star, and started 
out on their great journey. No doubt there was 
great excitement as they left their homes, taking 
with them food and water and other things neces- 
sary for the journey, and also carrying with them 
gifts suitable for the great King. 

They traveled mostly by night when the stars 
were shining, and when they could follow their own 
particular star. On and on they went, following the 
star, until the city of Jerusalem lay before them, and 
their hearts rejoiced at the thought of soon seeing 
the new-born King. They naturally thought that 
they would find Him in Jerusalem, the capital of 
the country. 

As they entered one of the gates of the city they 
asked one after another, ‘Where is he that is born 
King of the Jews? for we saw his star in the east, 
and are come to worship him.” They were some- 
what puzzled to find that the people did not seem to 
understand what they were talking about, because 
they expected everybody to know about the King 
that was born. 

At last the news reached Herod in his palace, and 
he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. He 
was about seventy years old, and very jealous at 
the thought that he might lose his place as king. 
He quickly gathered together all the chief priests 
and scribes of the people and asked them where 
the Christ should be born. And they told him that 
the prophets said he would be born in Bethlehem of 
Judaea 

Herod called the Magi to himself privately, and 


FOLLOWING THE STAR 215 


sent them to Bethlehem, a village about six miles 
south of Jerusalem, where it was said his birth was 
to take place. Before they left him, Herod said to 
the Magi, “Go and search out exactly concerning 
the young Child; and when ye have found him, 
bring me word, that I also may come and worship 
him.” You all know that he was a sly, old rascal, 
and that his real object was to find the baby King 
and put him to death. 

When they came out of the city they saw their 
star again, and followed it until it led them to the 
right place. “And they came into the house and saw 
the young Child with Mary his mother; and they 
fell down and worshiped him; and opening their 
treasures they offered unto him gifts, gold and 
frankincense and myrrh.” 

They were warned of God in a dream that they 
should not return to Herod, and they went back to 
their own country another way. 

Are there stars for us to follow? There surely 
are, though they may not appear suddenly in the 
heavens as did the star of the Magi. Every boy and 
girl has his or her ideals, which are high and noble 
aims in life, and which must be followed faith- 
fully. 

The Bible is such a star for every one. It was a 
star to the psalmist, who said: 

| “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, 
And a light unto my path.” 

He had only the Old Testament, where the prom- 
ises of the coming Messiah are found. We have the 
New Testament also, where the fulfillment of those 


216 FOLLOWING THE STAR 


promises is given, and where we learn about the 
coming of the King and the wonderful life He 
lived, and the wonderful work He did. In the 
Bible you can find out all you want to know about 
Jesus and about the way to heaven. 

The Magi saw the holy Jesus as a little Child, 
and worshiped Him. We know Him as _ our 
Saviour, and know what He has done for us. 


The story comes to us from Russia that an old 
woman, the Baboushka, was at work in her house 
when the Wise Men from the East passed on their 
way to find the Christ-Child. “Come with us,” they 
said, “we have seen His star in the east, and go to 
worship Him.” “I will come, but not now,” she an- 
swered; “I have my house to set in order; when 
this is done, I will follow and find Him.” But when 
her work was done the three kings had passed on 
their way across the desert, and the star shone no 
more in the darkened heavens. She never saw the 
Christ-Child, but she is living and searching for 
Him still, For His sake she takes care of all 
His children. It is she who in Russian and Italian 
houses is believed to fill the stockings and dress the 
tree on Christmas morn. ‘The children are awak- 
ened by the cry of “Behold the Baboushka!” and 
spring up, hoping to see her before she vanishes out 
of the window. She thinks, so they say, that in 
each poor little one whom she warms and feeds she 
may find the Christ-Child, whom she neglected ages 
ago, but is doomed to eternal disappointment. 


LI. 
MAKING ROOM FOR JESUS 


“There was no room for them in the inn.’—LuKE 
ire 


HEN we think of the fact that there was no 

\) \ room in the inn for Jesus to be born, and 

that He had to be born in a stable and 

cradled in a manger, this text becomes one of the 
saddest in the Bible. 

There is danger in our day, when we are so busy 
about many things, of crowding Jesus out of our 
lives. If we make room for Him in our hearts and 
lives, there will be room for everything that is for 
our good and only the things that would do us spir- 
itual harm will be driven out. Only as we make 
room for Jesus will Christmas have real meaning 
for us. 

Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, but Mary 
lived in Nazareth, eighty miles away. “God moves 
in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,” and 
He always finds a way in which to fulfill His 
prophecies and His promises. 

St. Luke tells us in the chapter from which our 
text is taken that there went out a decree from 
Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be en- 
rolled. This enrollment was a kind of a census. 
Some of you will remember that in 1920 the United 
States took a census of all the people living in our 


217 


218 MAKING ROOM FOR JESUS 


country. The censustakers, as they are usually 
called, went from door to door and enrolled all the 
people. But in the census of Caesar Augustus they 
used a different method. Instead of census-takers 
going around to the homes of the people, the 
people had to go to the native town of their family 
or clan to be enrolled. 

That is the reason why Joseph and Mary started 
out from Nazareth and began the long journey of 
eighty miles to go to Bethlehem, the city of David, 
because Joseph “was of the house and family of 
David,” as you can see by reading the first chapter 
of St. Matthew and the third chapter of St. Luke, 
chapters which are not often read on account of the 
hard names found in them. 

When they arrived at Bethlehem they were very 
tired, but to their surprise they found out that there 
was no room for them in the inn. Joseph looked 
around for a place of shelter, but the best he could 
do was to take Mary to a stable, a rude cavern cut 
out of the hillside, where travelers kept their oxen 
and other beasts used in traveling, and here they 
found shelter for the night. 

Little thought the people who crowded the inn and 
the homes of Bethlehem, that the greatest event in 
the world’s history was to take place during that 
“holy night, peaceful night.” It was then that Jesus 
was born, and Mary “wrapped Him in swaddling 
clothes, and laid Him in a manger.”’ 

Only those to whom God made known the fact 
were aware of the Saviour’s birth. Among these 
were the shepherds on Judaea’s plains, who were 


MAKING ROOM FOR JESUS 219 


keeping watch over their flocks by night. To them, 
because of their beautiful and simple faith, God sent 
an angel with the message: “Be not afraid; for be- 
hold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which 
shall be to all the people: for there is born to you 
this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is 
Christ the Lord. And this is the sign unto you: 
Ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, 
and lying in a manger.” 

And then a great angel choir sang the “Gloria in 
Excelsis’ for these devout shepherds, filling their 
souls with joy. They hastened into the village, “and 
found both Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in 
the manger.” 

Let us hope that some one soon offered a more 
suitable and comfortable place for the mother and 
child. At least, when the Magi came to worship 
the Child Jesus, St. Matthew says, “they came into 
the house.” No doubt some devout worshipers of 
God and believers in His promises opened their home 
and their hearts to the Word made flesh. 

I hope none of you will be so taken up at this 
season with your preparations for Christmas as to 
forget the Christ in whose honor the day is named. 
Let it not be said of you that there is no room for 
Him in your life. 

It is said that there was to be a christening in 
a fashionable family. Many guests were invited. 
They came dressed in the latest styles. Their wraps 
and cloaks were carried to the bed room and laid 
upon the beds. After spending some time in con- 
versation they made ready for the baptism. Some 


220 MAKING ROOM FOR JESUS 


one asked, ‘Where is the child?” The nurse went 
upstairs for the baby, but quickly returned, run- 
ning down the steps and crying: “The baby is 
dead ; it was smothered by the wraps of the guests!” 
The chief thing for which they came was forgot- 
ten, neglected, destroyed. 

Do not smother the Christ in your care and con- 
cern about many things at this Christmastide. Make 
room for Jesus. 

A story comes to us from away down in South 
Africa, where a missionary spoke to two little black 
Zulu boys about Jesus and His love. One of them 
went home to his mistress, and when she asked him 
what he had heard, he said, “Oh, it was about a 
wonderful Man. The people were very unkind to 
Him, and He died and went up to heaven; but He 
came down again and was like a little child in peo- 
ple’s hearts.” Then the lady said, “Well, and what 
did you do?” With shining face the boy replied, 
“T opened my heart and let the little Child Christ 
come in; and He came in, and my heart closed over 
Him, and He is safe inside.” 

There was no room for Jesus in the inn. Is there 
room for Him in your heart? 


LIT. 
LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 


“Forgetting the things which are behind, and 
stretching forward to the things which are before, I 
press on toward the goal.”—Puuw. 3:14. 


S we come to the end of another year and 
A stand at the door of a new year that will 

soon open before us, it is well to take a 
backward and a forward look. In our text, St. 
Paul speaks of his attitude toward the past, the 
present and the future. He wants to forget the 
things that are past; he wants to stretch forward to 
the things that are future; therefore his present duty 
is to press on toward the goal. 

Are there any things of this year that you want 
to forget? Did you think some thoughts, speak 
some words, or do some things during the year, that 
you wish you hadn’t done and that you would like 
to forget? The only way to have no regrets when 
the end of the year comes is to do your best every 
day during the year. It is too late at the end of the 
year to recover what you have lost. You may re- 
visit old scenes, reopen old books, go to see old 
friends, but you can never live over again a year 
that is ended. 

Now that the year is about at its close, it will not 
do much good to spend your time in regrets for the 
past. It is worth much more to profit by your past 


221 


222 FORWARD AND BACKWARD 


mistakes and to do better in the future. Like St. 
Paul, forget the things which are behind and stretch 
forward to the things which are before. 

But there is one thing we must bear in mind. 
You will not be the same when you go into the 
new year that you were when you came into this 
year. This year will be a part of yourself when 
you go into the new year. Asa tree gathers up all 
the growths of the past years and contains them in 
itself, so your life is the sum and substance of all 
your past. Although you forget the things which 
are past, you will carry the past with you into the 
future. 

In a few days we shall all turn a new leaf, anda 
new year will be before us to make of it whatever 
we will. How would it be if, as you stretch for- 
ward to the things which are before you, you would 
leave something ugly behind you—some bad temper, 
some little mean or selfish way, some bad habit—and 
put something good in its place? Do you not think 
the coming year would be much better and happier 
than this one has been? 


Once there were three little boys who played at 
having “white” days. A “white” day was a day in 
which they did nothing naughty, and seven “white” 
days made a “white” week. What a grand thing 
it would be if you would make up your mind to 
make the new year a “white” year! All you need to 
do is to make each day of the year a “white” day. 

It will be a great help to those who make and 
break New Year resolutions to think of what Dr. 
Johnson said in his old age: “I have been resolvy- 


FORWARD AND BACKWARD = 223 


ing these fifty-five years; now I take hold on God.” 
The chief thing in stretching forward to the things 
which are before is to do your present duty, to press 
on toward the goal day by day. If you take the main 
thought of St. Paul in the verses from which our 
text is taken—his real resolution—you will find that 
Pertuicnun One tino ldo) ieee ey Lopress: on 
toward the goal.’’ And what a wonderful goal it is: 
“unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus.” | 

A goal is an aim, a mark, a prize, an ideal toward 
which you are working. Every boy and girl ought 
to have an ideal in life. Whatever you want to be- 
come, to make of yourself, to do as your lifework, 
you can have no higher ideal than “‘the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” 


I heard a story not long ago which will help you 
to understand, a little better what is meant by an 
ideal. A little girl, who lived in an alley, took a 
walk into the park. She was a poor little girl, and 
not very clean. Her hair was uncombed and matted, 
her face was dirty, her dress was torn and untidy, 
her stockings were hanging down over her shoes. As 
she went along in the park she came to the beautiful 
statue of a little girl about her size. The little girl 
of the statue had a sweet face that was pure and 
white, as only marble could be, her hair was very 
nicely combed, her dress was clean and hung in 
graceful folds, her stockings were in place, and her 
shoes were neat and clean. As the little girl looked 
at the statue she began to stroke and smooth out her 
hair, she brushed off her dress with her hands, she 


224 FORWARD AND BACKWARD 


pulled up her stockings, and improved her looks as 
much as she could. 

The statue was her ideal, and as she went home 
she made up her mind that she would keep herself 
more clean and tidy, and I am sure she became a 
better and happier girl. If you make Jesus your 
ideal, as St. Paul did, you will strive to become 
more like Him every day, and your life and char- 
acter will grow more beautiful throughout the years. 


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